1 Wednesday, 22 November 2006

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 2.19 p.m.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Good afternoon to you, Madam Registrar. Could you

6 kindly call the case, please.

7 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honours. This is case number

8 IT-05-88-T, the Prosecutor versus Vujadin Popovic et al.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you. Everyone is here, except Mr. Bourgon.

10 The Prosecution team is Mr. McCloskey and Mr. Thayer.

11 I understand there are some preliminaries. Yes, Mr. McCloskey?

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Mr. President. In an effort to help shed

13 some more light on this issue of the dates and these printouts, I spoke

14 with the person that had more knowledge about this in our team and we have

15 identified what we believe are the different reports that were sent out on

16 the 14th with the various numbers and headings that will, I think, help

17 resolve the issue, if this witness remembers them and recognises them. I

18 hate to say I've not gone over this stuff with him and asked him about it.

19 That was for the bigger -- the overall witness who is coming second. So

20 if he can't talk about it, the other witness can. But we can try to ask

21 him and see if he remembers these issues and, if he can, then it may help

22 resolve it. But I think you'll just see from the face of the documents

23 that it's pretty obvious that some of the concerns and questions made

24 sense yesterday.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. I thank you so much, Mr. McCloskey.

1 Any other preliminaries?

2 Yes, Madam Fauveau?

3 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Mr. President, could we move to

4 private session?

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's move to private session, please.

6 [Private session]

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16 [Open session]

17 [The witness entered court]

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Good afternoon to you, sir. Welcome back.

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honour.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: [Microphone not activated]

21 WITNESS: WITNESS PW-132 [Resumed]

22 [Witness answered through interpreter]

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. McCloskey?

24 MR. McCLOSKEY: Good afternoon, Mr. President, Your Honours,

25 Witness, everyone.

1 I'm going to be referring to a new series of documents which we

2 have marked P02312, if we could -- everyone should have the physical

3 packet on that to refer to. It's B/C/S but I'm going to try to stick to

4 just numbers and things so we won't need to go into too much English at

5 the moment.

6 Examination by Mr. McCloskey: [Continued]

7 Q. Witness, I have a bit of a surprise for you this afternoon because

8 I have this exhibit for you as well and it -- it's not something that I've

9 shown you before and I've written in ink P 02312 on it and if you could

10 just study it a bit, especially -- not -- not -- I don't need to you look

11 so much in the content of the various intercepts right now but if you

12 could go through the different headings up in the left-hand corner,

13 especially the numbers. And the first question, let me ask you, is: As

14 we look up in the left-hand corner, it says, "STR. POV. BR." Can you --

15 can you tell me what that -- what that means?

16 A. I apologise, sir. First of all, good afternoon to you. I was --

17 I'm a bit absent minded today. Can you please put your question again? I

18 was not with you all the time.

19 Q. Okay. Looking up in the left-hand corner of this first page,

20 about four lines down, there is the abbreviation "STR. POV. BR."

21 Do you know what those abbreviations stand for?

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Josse?

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, sir.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment.

25 MR. JOSSE: I saw that my client had some difficulty, Your Honour.

1 He called the usher over. I don't know what it is. I don't think it's

2 been solved.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: General Gvero, what's the problem?

4 THE ACCUSED GVERO: [Interpretation] I cannot see the transcript on

5 the monitor and the accused's microphone is not on so the interpreter

6 missed the second part of the -- I don't have either the transcript or the

7 e-court on my monitor.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: We will given you all the assistance required. In

9 the meantime, perhaps, as Judge Kwon is suggesting, if you can move closer

10 to General Pandurevic, you can try and follow from his while we fix yours.

11 I'm sure you wouldn't mind, Mr. Pandurevic.

12 THE ACCUSED GVERO: [Interpretation] Thank you for your assistance,

13 Your Honour.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Is it being taken care of? All right. Okay. Thank

15 you. We can proceed.

16 Mr. McCloskey, perhaps it's the case of putting the question again

17 the third time. Thank you.

18 MR. McCLOSKEY:

19 Q. Yes, Witness, this abbreviation, "STR. POV. BR."?

20 A. Yes, sir. I apologise to the Trial Chamber. I did not adapt to

21 the courtroom right away. Now I'm ready to answer the question. I had

22 some noise in my head phones. I don't know what this noise is about.

23 The abbreviation that you are asking me about stands for strictly

24 confidential, and the document bears a number, so this is something that

25 you will find on strictly confidential documents under certain numbers.

1 Q. Okay. Now, and if you could take a minute to look at the other

2 documents underneath the one on the top, sometimes the documents are one

3 or two or more pages, but if you could go to the next document that has a

4 heading and a strictly confidential number, you will notice that that

5 number begins with 02. So the first one was 01, the second one was 02, if

6 we look at the next document in line, it's 03, and then 04, so on.

7 Now, with that in mind, we -- let's go back to the first page, and

8 after 01 we see a slash and we see five numbers that can be read in a

9 number of different ways. Do you know what those five numbers reflect?

10 For example, if they are read in the 14, 7, 95, what would that mean?

11 A. That number can be found in every report. I can only assume that

12 this was the key for that day but this is just my assumption. We can see

13 that the report was sent on a certain date and that they follow a

14 sequence, the first one, the second one, the third one, which means that

15 on that day, there were a number of reports sent out.

16 Q. Okay. Is it possible that that 14, 7, 95, is the 14th day of July

17 1995? Because as I -- as I look at all of these, 1 through some 13, 14,

18 15, I see the same numbers, 1, 4, 7, 9, 5.

19 A. Yes. You can see that they tally with the date.

20 Q. Okay. So if we have -- we have 16 numbered reports, all with the

21 slash and the 14, 7, 95 next to them. And so let's just briefly go

22 through them and see if we can help identify, not the text but help sort

23 out how the date system works. My first question would be: Do you know

24 why the strictly confidential number 01 would have the 14 July 1995 date

25 next to it and then that date is repeated under datum, 14, 7, 95, and if

1 you know. If you don't remember, we don't want you to speculate or wonder

2 but if you know why the date is there twice, I'd appreciate it, but --

3 A. I don't know, sir, and I also don't want to speculate.

4 Q. All right. Well, let's look at this first one, then, which is in

5 ERN last four digits 5314, we notice that this first conversation is at

6 0704 hours, then there is another conversation at 0750 hours, and then as

7 we turn the page we get to 0850 hours. And then when we get to the next

8 document, which is last four digits ERN 5317, sorry, 5316, we see the same

9 heading up in the left but this time, as we've said, it's 02.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. McCloskey, I hate to interrupt you but I think

11 we can simplify it much, much, much more. I see that the last of these

12 documents is one which carries the date 15, 07, 1995. Do you have also

13 one from 13th of July 1995?

14 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, I did, Your Honour, but I decided it would

15 confuse the issue so I didn't bring it in.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: I think it would simplify the issue because you

17 would have one or two of 13th July, one or two of 15th July, and you can

18 leave all the others of 14th July and we won't need any explanation from

19 the witness.

20 MR. McCLOSKEY: I will dig that up, Mr. President. There is a

21 couple of issues that I think you'll be interested in seeing as we go

22 through them.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: That's another matter but it's okay.

24 MR. McCLOSKEY:

25 Q. So, Witness, if you could concentrate on this number 2 document

1 that's got the 02 number on it, and it appears to be from your unit,

2 according to that heading, and -- but this time we see CSB, SDB Tuzla,

3 which we all know is MUP. And then we see -- we see that the intercepts

4 are in all caps. Now I'd asked you yesterday if you recalled whether or

5 not -- you said you recalled giving the MUP intercepts but we didn't talk

6 in detail about the MUP giving you intercepts. Can you -- in looking at

7 there, can you tell us what this report number 2 is?

8 A. The report number 2 is the -- a report by the SDB or DB as we call

9 it from Tuzla which was sent to their unit via our computer. They were

10 entitled to do so. This was approved by our command and they could do it

11 any time, and I was not even in a position to know when they did that.

12 And judging by this document, they indeed were using that service.

13 Q. But this went out with one of -- it went out with a 2nd Corps

14 strictly confidential number on it, if this is correct. This has the

15 appearance of a document that was sent to the -- by the army. Is that not

16 right?

17 A. Sir, the upper title, where it says "the Army of the Republic of

18 Bosnia and Herzegovina," was sent from my computer. Everything under the

19 line is the body of the text and it transpires from the body that it was

20 sent by an SDB unit through our command. I suppose that their computer

21 was out of order. This is just my assumption. And they were entitled to

22 the right to send their reports through our computer. I did not even have

23 to be informed about who the reports were sent to. The only thing that

24 our operator would use would be a different heading containing the key for

25 that day and then the material would be delivered. Another way one could

1 do the same thing would be using a floppy disk that our operator could put

2 in the computer to -- and send the report to the command of our unit.

3 Q. Okay. One other thing on this front page, and you can read it.

4 It's the -- and it's in English. It says, "VERY URGENT" in all caps. Do

5 you understand what "very urgent" means in English?

6 A. Yes. At least I can understand that.

7 Q. Was that something your unit used? Would you use English terms

8 like this or is this an SDB term, or do you know?

9 A. I have to go back to everything above the line. This is the

10 heading of my unit, which was part of the reports sent from our computer.

11 Anything under the line is the SDB material. I was not familiar with

12 their way of text processing. We used different ways of marking that

13 something was urgent and the word that we used was "priority."

14 Q. Okay. Well, let's just then go through the various dates. I

15 don't need to go three each one of them. We see that 1 through 9 are all

16 dated 14 July, and include various intercepts, but if we could go to

17 number 9 which has got an ERN number of 03205330?

18 A. Yes. I can see that.

19 Q. Okay. And looking up at that left-hand corner we see the usual

20 heading, and we see the number 9, then we see that 14795 and under date

21 it's 04, 01, 80. Now, can you explain how -- you know, how that might

22 have happened or do you have any explanation? You mentioned problems

23 yesterday. Any explanation for this glitch?

24 A. I really don't have any, but I said it yesterday that I know that

25 there was some problem with regard the date and the key and I don't know

1 what they did. If that was the case, then you should be looking for the

2 person who could explain what happened.

3 Q. All right. And then if we continue to go through the

4 conversations by number, we don't see any more misdates like that and then

5 I want you to look at number 15. Do you see number 15? It is the ERN --

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. -- 03205339.

8 A. Yes. I can see that.

9 Q. Now, isn't that the intercept that we were speaking of yesterday

10 that was mentioning Major Jokic and Mr. Beara?

11 A. Yes, sir.

12 Q. All right. Now, let's look at the next one, number 16, and it --

13 if you could. It's dated -- it has the numbers 14, 7, 95 on it. Do you

14 see that? But then underneath that, under datum, it says 15, 7, 95. Do

15 you have an explanation for that? What we see here is 1 through 16 with

16 the 14 July 95 next to it but then now we have the date of 15 July

17 underneath. Can you give us any help on the significance of that?

18 A. Yes, sir. I can see that in the heading there is a coded sign

19 that you mentioned that has to do with the date, but that that code does

20 not tally with the date. However, it transpires from the previous

21 conversation, which was a priority, that that conversation took place at

22 2102 hours, which means that we kept on sending reports for that day but

23 it was after 0000 hours, and that's why the date was different. In other

24 words, a subsequent date was used.

25 Q. Okay. Now, to look at this intercept itself we again see that

1 it's CSB, SDB Tuzla, which has its own date on it of 14 July 1995. How

2 does that tally with what you're telling us?

3 A. This shows that the material from the 14th was sent on the 15th.

4 This material contains the material of the 14th of July.

5 Q. Okay. Now, let's go to the next one, which is -- has that date

6 again of 15 July at the bottom. This is an ERN number 03205345. And it's

7 the 01. So it appears to be -- we now have started over. So this is the

8 first one for the 15th of July as we see it. But as we look at the

9 intercept itself, we see that it's at 2241 hours, pretty late in the day.

10 So bearing that in mind, let's take a look at number 2 on the 15th.

11 Again, it says number 2. It says 15 July twice. And that conversation is

12 at 0554 hours, very early in the morning on -- well, on this document with

13 15 July on it twice. Now, going back to the first document, 01, dated

14 2241 hours, in your opinion, based on your knowledge and this -- and

15 having this sprung on you, can you give us your opinion what date this

16 intercept from 2241 was actually intercepted on?

17 A. I can only tell you what I think about it, sir. I wouldn't like

18 to really be very categorical about it. This material was probably not

19 sent on -- with the report of that day because it arrived too late so it

20 was most probably sent on the following day, with the report of the

21 following day.

22 Q. So --

23 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment. May I ask a question at this stage

24 which you can put to the witness?

25 Say a conversation is intercepted at 22.41 hours on a particular

1 day. Normal day. It's recorded, transcribed in handwriting. It's read

2 out to the person who converts it then into printed format. How much

3 time would normally elapse between the moment of interception and the

4 moment it is ready for transmission to whichever office they were

5 transmitting it? A message like this which takes -- it's two typewritten

6 pages.

7 MR. McCLOSKEY:

8 Q. Do you understand that question? You play want to put it in the

9 context of July 14th which was as you know what the events were on those

10 days. In you could answer the President's question.

11 A. Yes, sir.

12 Your Honour, the materials had to be sent as soon as possible, as

13 soon as technically and physically feasible. The materials had to be

14 intercepted and taken down and this is not always an easy job. So you

15 can't really say it took us five minutes, two minutes or so on. So when

16 priority was at stake, it had to be sent along as soon as possible, even

17 if certain details were missed, for the sake of speed, and this is

18 probably evident. As a rule, when combat operations were being carried

19 out, the material had to be sent to the command in the form of a report as

20 soon as possible.

21 On the average, for a group of conversations, regular

22 conversations, none of which were urgent, it would take up to an hour; for

23 a single conversation, perhaps about 20 minutes to half an hour. If there

24 was no urgency expressed by the command for the sending of the reports,

25 the regular daily reports would be sent in the late evening hours, between

1 7.00 and 9.00 p.m. usually, and these would be regular reports when there

2 were no combat operations ongoing. If there were combat operations, the

3 situation would be different and we would send along a report as soon as

4 we had it ready.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.

6 MR. McCLOSKEY:

7 Q. So as we looked at this packet with all these dates of 14 July and

8 then moving on to 15 July, can you tell us, based on the process and the

9 procedures, what dates these intercepts were actually captured and

10 recorded on?

11 A. From these documents, it's evident that the conversations were

12 intercepted and recorded on the 14th and 15th of July.

13 Q. Okay. Well, let's set this thing aside and we'll remember to get

14 the 13th so we have the other side of it, if you want it. I saw a head

15 shake over there.

16 So -- and let's go back to the documents that we were looking at

17 before in Sanction but we need to make sure that they are not going out

18 and I think we can still be in open session as long as the documents are

19 going out.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. So we will remain in open session but

21 no broadcasting of the documents which we will be seeing on Sanction.

22 MR. McCLOSKEY: And for the record this is 65 ter numbers 1164 E.

23 We should have the English and the B/C/S. This is back to the 14 July

24 1995 Beara-Jokic conversation.

25 Q. All right. Now, we were going over this conversation to get a

1 feel for how you -- sorry, how you did this. Are we -- is -- can you see

2 that conversation in front of you?

3 A. No, sir. I don't have it on my screen. Yes, now I do.

4 Q. Okay. I think we had left off, I think you'd identified -- well,

5 as we go down the actual conversation, you identified the first B as

6 Badem, I think then you said you didn't know the next line, who -- the

7 next two lines, who that was, then the next B was Badem. And then we come

8 to this P. Can you tell us from looking at this, you know, who the -- who

9 the P means? What participant?

10 A. Just a moment, sir. Can we zoom in on this so I can see? It's

11 Palma.

12 Q. Okay. And then we go to the next one, it's J and it says:

13 "Hello, who is it, Major, I'm the duty officer at Palma, I need

14 Beara urgently. This is Major Jokic. Who is that? Why the fuck are you

15 not answering? Is Ostoja there? Is Brko there? Don't fuck around, the

16 line has to be free and you must pick it up right away! Who is Ostoja?

17 Is Ostoja there? Have him call me urgently. I will, I will. Hello!

18 Hello!"

19 Now, you've put J in front of that whole section. First of all,

20 tell us who J is?

21 A. J is Jokic.

22 Q. And how do you figure out to put Jokic in this conversation?

23 A. Well, sir, those were the recommendations we were given, the

24 gentleman introduced himself and I designated him as such, so he himself

25 introduced himself. That's what we always did. That was our way of

1 working.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Ostojic?

3 MR. OSTOJIC: Sorry to have to object at this point, Your Honour,

4 but on the B/C/S version of this purported intercept, it doesn't say the

5 words, "This is Major Jokic," as the Prosecutor clearly states so I think

6 his questions are misleading and it's obvious the witness reading into

7 that question says that he introduced himself. All it says is, "maj.

8 Jokic". If he wanted him to say, "This is Jokic," he would have used the

9 word "Ovo je Jokic" or "Majo Jokic," and he doesn't say that. He just

10 says the words "maj." and then the name Jokic.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Ostojic, if you look further down, on the

12 English version, page 1, the very penultimate line, J: "Is that Beara?

13 Jokic here."

14 So when all this is transcribed, and the witness now knows because

15 he's heard the speaker himself say, "Jokic here," he will put J next to

16 what he believes is Jokic.

17 MR. OSTOJIC: If he believes it's a different thing, Your Honour,

18 but if he's been purportedly reading a translation of it that is

19 significant in many parts, as we will see. I mean, if the courts wants to

20 argue about it that's fine.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Know but it's.

22 MR. OSTOJIC: It's clearly misleading to me.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: I don't think it is misleading because on the face

24 of it the document itself indicates that this speaker described himself as

25 Jokic. Of course, you can take this up on cross-examination in due course

1 but it's a perfectly legitimate question. Go ahead.

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: Mr. President, we have a translation issue. This

3 is a CLSS translation so it's not like I'm putting in, "This is" in this

4 material.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: No, no, I'm sure you aren't. I understand that.

6 MR. McCLOSKEY:

7 Q. Okay. Now, how do you -- you've got Jokic making all these

8 comments, I take it. How do you -- how do you account for that?

9 A. There were at least two possibilities for something like this to

10 come up in the speech of one of the participants. First I have to explain

11 to you the technical aspect of relay radio stations, FM-200 or RRU-800.

12 Each of these relay stations including this multi-channel one had a

13 transmitter and component. When we found a relay station we heard the

14 participants who were on the transmitter side of the relay station best.

15 Those are the ones we heard best. Very rarely or only occasionally were

16 we able to monitor their incoming frequency. The other relay station that

17 was linked up to them. So on one side, we heard one participant better

18 than the other, and at the other end it was the other way around so that

19 is a simple answer. Radio relay stations functioned differently than we

20 hear them. They have the receiver component which we not hear through the

21 pilot. This is sent on to the other side, and for this reason, it could

22 happen that Mr. Jokic and the participant to whom he's talking either

23 leaves very little space and we cannot hear the speech or we hear it but

24 not well, and we could not capture that and transcribe it. But as there

25 are no dots here, even if Astic [phoen] did hear something, I'm not going

1 into that, we had very little space to put in dots to indicate that

2 somebody is speaking here.

3 Q. Is there a possibly simpler explanation that Major Jokic was

4 talking on two transmitters at once? He had one open trying to find Beara

5 and he had a -- picking up another phone in the office trying to find

6 somebody else?

7 MR. OSTOJIC: I object to speculation, Your Honour.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Well, if you can answer the question without

9 speculating, go ahead. If you can only speculate, then ask us not to

10 answer the question.

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Thank you, Your Honours.

12 I was only giving an example to show that a participant can say

13 several sentences and at the same time be responding to someone else.

14 Underneath you have a note, it's in very small print so I can't read it

15 now but I know that it says here that a telephone line was open with one

16 of the switchboards, and you can see which switchboard it is from the

17 conversation itself. When this happened, Your Honours, it was easy to see

18 how all this went.

19 MR. McCLOSKEY:

20 Q. Okay. Let's keep going. We see B again, I take it that continues

21 to be what, B?

22 A. Badem.

23 Q. Okay. And then we have J for Jokic saying hello. And now we have

24 X that says, I won't get into all of it but it's something about Snagovo

25 and problems and Crni Vir. What's the significance of X when something

1 like this you're hearing something like this?

2 A. That, sir, would happen in the situation I have just described.

3 When X appears then there is an open line and we heard a participant who

4 suddenly turned up out of no where.

5 Q. Okay. And then we get another participant, Y, with "...". What's

6 the significance of that?

7 A. Y is a second unknown participant to whom person X was speaking,

8 so we had several conversations going on here.

9 Q. If you have no information or no words, how do you know there is a

10 Y there and it's not just dead space?

11 A. Well, you know, sir, if you heard a murmur or an indistinct

12 conversation, we would put in dots. So anything that we were unable to

13 transcribe in the form of words, we didn't even try to decipher noise that

14 we couldn't actually tell what they meant.

15 Q. Okay. Well, then, let's go on. We have -- X makes another

16 comment about the -- consolidating the lines. Then we have J, Jokic is

17 back saying, "Hello." Then we have B, Badem, I guess, saying, "Just a

18 moment. One moment old man." And then Jokic saying, "Is that Beara?

19 Jokic here." And then we see the letters B and E, dot, dot, dot.

20 What's -- what's that mean?

21 A. BE means Beara.

22 Q. And how have you figured that Beara is in that conversation that

23 you can't hear well because and then you've got dots?

24 A. From the course of the conversation, one can see that Mr. Jokic

25 had already entered into conversation with someone and addressed him. And

1 from the conversation he uses -- we can see that he later on uses his

2 rank, he mentions it, and then we can see that Mr. Jokic is talking to the

3 person he asked to talk to.

4 Q. Okay. Now, we'll a little bit later go over the actual draft of

5 the report to show how you decide when to put the various participants in,

6 but let me ask you about that. Just -- well, we'll go over that when we

7 get to the draft.

8 Okay. So then we see Jokic saying, "We were together, Colonel,

9 sir. Number 155 called you and asked to you call him urgently." Then

10 the -- Beara cannot be heard. Then Jokic talks about Number 155, that

11 means "... the higher house, you go ahead and call them, you have, so I

12 don't speak like this." Then Beara can't be heard again. Jokic says,

13 "Yes. Hey. We have huge problems over here." Beara can't be heard

14 again. Jokic, "There are big problems. Well with the people, I mean, the

15 parcel." Beara can't be heard. Jokic, "Who? Drago is nowhere around. I

16 don't know where the others are all day." Again Beara can't be heard.

17 Jokic says, "What? Call there [sic] number 155 in the higher house and

18 that's it. OK boss." Beara, we have dot, dot, dot, and then for the

19 first time, we have Beara with words, "Why number 155? Where is that?"

20 Then Jokic responds: "Well, I can't tell you on this line, you know. You

21 have it over there at the signalsmen, who that is." And Beara says,

22 "Yes?" And Jokic says, "Bye."

23 Again I don't want to you go through the whole explanation but can

24 you tell us, do you have any opinion why, after not being able to really

25 understand what Beara was saying, that you are able to catch the last two

1 lines?

2 A. As it's evident that the person at the switchboard was constantly

3 switching on and off and manipulating the technology, that person was able

4 to cut off the connection of the second participant or make it available,

5 and that's the only assumption I can make, the only technical possibility

6 of this happening, what we can see here, that is.

7 Q. Well, that opinion is actually noted in the small remark at the

8 bottom that where you say, "Thanks to a switchboard operator's mistake at

9 Badem we recorded a conversation between X and Y who couldn't be heard

10 while he was intercepting the line 44 was open for Jokic."

11 How do you figure the mistake was at Badem and not at Palma?

12 A. Because the switchboard at Badem was switching Jokic on, opening

13 the line, making it possible for us to hear Beara for at least a few

14 moments. Everything was done by the participant at Badem.

15 Excuse me, let me add something. And you can also see at the

16 beginning of the text that Jokic is calling someone and I have to say, you

17 see, you have the letter B up there. Each of the participants on one

18 channel, on a multi-channel radio relay station, can also be heard on the

19 small relay station but not necessarily. Also, one participant can be

20 fixed, and this often happened. If this is contentious, we can

21 investigate it further. But we would need the necessary documents.

22 Q. Okay. Now I'd like to go to the actual notebook and copy of the

23 notebook and look at the handwritten version as -- and ask you a bit how

24 that came about and if we could get the original so I -- the Court may

25 want to take a look at the court and it would probably be easier for the

1 witness to look at it as well. I don't -- I know that counsel has seen

2 it. I don't know if the Court wants to take a look?

3 JUDGE AGIUS: We have a hard copy of the document. What I

4 suggest, however, if you require the witness to be in a better position, I

5 think if you provide him with a hard copy, it will be better, and, of

6 course, I don't know if it's the case of having it broadcast or not.

7 That's another matter. But --

8 MR. McCLOSKEY: We shouldn't. There are some initials on the --

9 in the document. I think it would be best if the witness could actually

10 have the original, we can put it on the ELMO. There is some colour in

11 there that have some relevance.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: That's better but we either do this then in private

13 session, since there are some signatures, or else the understanding is

14 that the -- what is -- appears on the ELMO is not broadcast.

15 All right. Thank you. So there will be no broadcast of the

16 document itself as it shows up on the ELMO.

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: And the copy, the photocopy of this original is

18 P02308 and if you could just hand him the original notebook, we'll just

19 start out with some brief explanations.

20 Q. Can you take -- I know you've seen this before. Can you just

21 start -- can you tell us what -- what this is as it fits into your

22 testimony, briefly?

23 A. This is one of the notebooks from my unit. They were used to

24 transcribe conversations intercepted on relay radio stations.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: You said that there are some entries in colour. I

1 think for that reason we need to see it on the ELMO.

2 MR. McCLOSKEY:

3 Q. Could you start by just putting it on the ELMO just so we can see

4 the front page, not the conversation yet but so that we can see the front

5 page, and I think there are some numbers and things that I want to ask you

6 about briefly. Yeah. The -- and I think we can -- there are some --

7 well, we all know that that vertical number is an ICTY number. And can

8 you bring it down a little bit more so we can get the whole book on there,

9 because there is a -- okay. It can't be seen very well but there is a

10 number 9 up in the right-hand corner written. Do you have any idea who

11 wrote that?

12 A. As for number 9, I don't know, and I also don't know anything

13 about this bigger number 9.

14 Q. Okay. How about the numbers a little bit below that or the

15 letters. I see RRU and then something below that. Do you know what that

16 is?

17 A. This is my handwriting. This is radio relay device 1, which means

18 that the notebook was to be used for transcribing material from the radio

19 relay device number 1. This was the type of radio station, RRU-1.

20 Q. How about the number underneath it?

21 A. The number underneath is our number, the number in our unit.

22 That's how we marked notebooks in my unit. They were numbered by numbers

23 from 1 to 30-something, and this slash, Roman II, points to the fact that

24 we also had a notebook number 29/I, and this is 29/II.

25 Q. All right. Let's open up the first page. And do you -- can you

1 tell us, if you know, who wrote that and what it is, just briefly?

2 A. The text here is in my handwriting. This means that this is a

3 book of reports for the radio relay device of this sort. Underneath this

4 denotes the receiver, and the date is the date when the notebook started

5 to be used, when the first entry was made, and we never put the date of

6 the last entry into this notebook.

7 Q. Okay. Can you turn the page? I think on the left -- the left

8 side there should be a little number, yeah, up in the left corner. Do you

9 know what that is?

10 A. This was entered by the command, and it says, when the notebook

11 was sent to us for our use. However, they did not have to send it on that

12 particular date, but this entry denotes the date when it was entered in

13 their books.

14 Q. All right. Then let's go to the first page. Can we -- all right.

15 Now, we've -- we see this and we see the -- what I think we've learned is

16 the frequency and the time and participants. We don't see a date. And I

17 asked but this last time but can you tell us, was the date normally put in

18 these things?

19 A. Normally it wasn't, because this was just a draft of the material

20 that would later on become a document. I'm really sorry but this is how

21 things were done.

22 Q. Okay. Let's flip through the notebook to ERN, last three digits

23 683.

24 MR. McCLOSKEY: If you could do that, usher, you'll see the ERNs in

25 there.

1 And if we could get the bottom half of the notebook, yeah, no,

2 keep -- we need more of the bottom, sorry. Yeah, right there. Okay.

3 That's good.

4 Q. Now, on this -- on this page of -- we -- above this, the time 0820

5 and I guess a frequency number, we see 12, 7, 95. Is that a date?

6 A. Yes, sir. That is a date.

7 Q. Okay. And if we could now just -- let's flip to the next page.

8 We see that this conversation is at 0820 hours in a certain handwriting

9 and we go to the next page. We come to a conversation that has 0957

10 hours. And to try to -- to save some time, I can tell you that, having

11 gone through this notebook on that, it goes from 0957 to 1115, 1250, 1300,

12 1305, 1640. And then the next entry is 1236 and there is an entry at

13 1400. And then the next entry is at 1218, and then 1221, 1234, 1650,

14 1827, 2048, and then 2102 is the --

15 JUDGE KWON: We couldn't follow.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: I'm trying hard to follow but I can't.

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: You were supposed to be taking my word for that

18 because it is a bit hard to follow.

19 JUDGE KWON: But I wonder if the witness is following.

20 MR. McCLOSKEY: I did speed up but if -- I can slow that down.

21 Q. Could you -- could you just do what I did and try to follow the

22 different -- the times and the reason I'm doing this is, can you, by

23 looking at this, identify different 24 hour periods leading up to this

24 intercept of 2102 hours, which is the intercept we've been talking about

25 all this time?

1 A. First of all, I'm going to say something about this document that

2 I'm looking at currently. I can see that the signature is there, the

3 operator's signature is there, and in some conversations there is also the

4 signature of the person who recorded the conversation. The second thing

5 that I can notice is the fact that this notebook was designated for the

6 RRU-1 frequency, and all the previous frequencies testified to that fact.

7 In other words, they were all RRU-1. And all of a sudden you have

8 frequencies RRU-800. There it is, the first one. There was 785, fifth

9 channel, 1145 hours. At that moment, the two notebooks were nixed, the

10 RRU-1 and the RRU-800, and he started entering the conversation that was

11 taken from the radio relay station which was either RRU-800 or FMU-200.

12 This is what I can see. I can also see the sequence of the times of the

13 conversations as they were recorded, and transcribed, but I would not dare

14 venture and say that this was all either on the same day or that there was

15 a certain sequence of times up to that conversation that you have

16 mentioned, which I currently cannot locate. And that I cannot do for the

17 fact that the two channels were mixed up. However, judging by the

18 handwriting of the operative who used a blue ballpoint pen and who signed

19 the transcript means that he was working in that shift on the 12th of July

20 1995, and that he made a note of the time when this conversation took

21 place. Then he changed the ballpoint pen and again the same person

22 continued working.

23 Q. Okay. Let me interrupt you. Fair enough. Can you give us an

24 idea of how many books were in use on a -- like a busy day in July, on

25 these dates? We know you have four sets, you got two men or more, if

1 needed, but can you give us an idea of how many books might be in use on a

2 busy day like that?

3 A. There should have been four at any one time, at the disposal of

4 the operatives. Maybe they lacked a notebook at the time or one was full

5 at that moment. Whatever I said would be just speculation on my part.

6 Q. Okay. Once a book starts getting used, will it continue to be

7 used continuously or could it get set aside and not used for a day or two

8 or more?

9 A. It could happen that it was set aside. Sometimes there was a

10 mix-up and the notebook that should have been used wasn't used. This did

11 happen. But all the notebooks were always there to be used.

12 Q. Okay. Can you -- if you've figured out our ERN number, do you see

13 that big long number, let's go to the conversation we've been talking

14 about, and it's 00779705 should be the first page of it. You see that in

15 the top of the page?

16 A. Yes. I can see that, sir.

17 Q. Okay.

18 MR. McCLOSKEY: And for the Court's record, there should be a

19 translation of the notebook version or handwritten version in your packet

20 which is one of the explanations on why there is another translation.

21 They are very similar, obviously, because the conversations are very

22 similar but, as you can tell from the evidence, there may be slight

23 changes so in this first one we have endeavoured to have two translations.

24 And -- but actually it's not so much the English I'm concerned

25 about here so let us -- can you put -- can we put this back on the screen

1 again and perhaps just as a double effort, we can -- we can put -- yeah,

2 we can put it on that screen, to Sanction, I guess. Okay. Could we put

3 the original on the -- on the screen? Okay. Well, sorry, okay. We want

4 that second conversation sort of in the bottom and we -- yeah. And we

5 don't need the other page, if you could centre that conversation in there.

6 Come up a little higher to get -- okay. Perfect. That's a good start.

7 Q. Okay. And I think it comes through but do you recognise this

8 conversation? Or do you recognise this handwriting, first of all?

9 A. Yes, sir, this is my handwriting.

10 Q. Is there any doubt in your mind you were the person that heard

11 this conversation and transcribed it into the notebook?

12 A. None whatsoever, sir.

13 Q. Okay. And just in looking at it, we see, like others, there is no

14 date but it does start out with the frequency, channel, the time. And

15 then we see next to the CH 3 and it looks like it's in -- well it is in

16 blue ink from the original, and as is the X and the Y, is that your

17 handwriting, the "PRIORITET" XY, in blue ink? And if you want to look at

18 the original, you can.

19 A. This is not my handwriting, sir. I can see that.

20 Q. Do you know how it got there? Or do you have an opinion? I don't

21 want you to speculate.

22 A. The only people who knew about the conversation were myself and

23 the person from the computer, the computer operator. Maybe you should ask

24 him. Maybe he added this word, "PRIORITET," before I started reading this

25 text.

1 Q. Who would have made the decision that it was a priority

2 conversation?

3 A. Sir, I was one who could have made that decision, but also we had

4 a telephone link with the command and I could always get in touch with

5 them and tell them that I had an interesting conversation, that a person

6 from the OPP had called me and that they were interested to see it as soon

7 as possible. And then the priority mode would be put in force and we

8 would send it off.

9 Q. All right. Now, we can see somewhat on this screen that you have

10 made various dark marks over -- and overwrites, or someone has, in this

11 text. Can you take that pen and -- I think if you could -- and I know --

12 I know you've seen this before, but could you circle each little edit or

13 correction for us, number it, and tell us what you think it is?

14 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment. What is he going to put his marks on,

15 on the original or -- because I think what he has is the original

16 notebook.

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: Oh, thank you, Your Honour. I meant the stylus on

18 the computer so we are going to have so switch off from the ELMO to back

19 to -- excuse me, to the other one. I'm -- a lot of balls in the air on

20 this one. We need to call that up in e-court. Sorry, I've been working

21 on Sanction and -- for him to mark it and it's worth, I think, calling the

22 gods of e-court. And it's 1164B.

23 Q. As we are doing that, can you briefly tell us the process by which

24 you would actually make marks on a draft like this? Why would you-- why

25 would you make changes or marks, briefly?

1 A. Yes, sir. I can see in the text that in the course of the

2 conversation itself, I noted Palma. However, when I continued listening

3 in, probably as I was listening to the tape, although this is not

4 important whether it was through the tape or through the conversation

5 itself, all the new information was entered and the previous information

6 was corrected. In addition to the original Palma, I added, "the duty

7 operative at Palma." This was subsequently added. I also tried to enter

8 a new participant, I gained more information, and that's when I added

9 Major Jokic. And that's how the title came about.

10 Q. Okay. I want to go through each one of these things you're

11 talking about, but let's start with the top and if you can get that -- if

12 you can get that pen -- yeah, not the top conversation but the top of this

13 conversation, which starts with "priority," and the first markover we can

14 see is -- is right there, looks like next to -- next to Palma. Can you

15 circle that and tell us what you think that is?

16 A. [Marks].

17 Q. And put a 1 on that, will you and then tell us what you think it

18 might be. Or what it is; we don't want you to speculate.

19 A. [Marks]. Since I am familiar with my handwriting, I will know

20 what this is. This was E originally.

21 Q. And so you marked it over to put in what?

22 A. Actually it was originally A, and then it became E.

23 Q. Okay. So you changed it to an E, Palme?

24 A. Yes, sir.

25 Q. Okay. Then we see a -- another black mark on the next line down,

1 by -- looks like something to do with "Bajru." Can you circle that, put a

2 2 on it, and tell us what you think you did there?

3 A. [Marks]. Beara's name is here. There was something unclear here.

4 I thought it wouldn't be legible so I repeated letter E in his name.

5 Q. Why did you need for this to be legible?

6 A. Well, we did not need it to be legible. We needed it to be

7 correct and to be read correctly. The fact that it is not neat doesn't

8 really make a difference at all. Because this document was just a draft

9 of the future real document. This is just raw material that had to be

10 processed in a way, and while doing that, we were not supposed to change

11 anything in the contents of the document.

12 Q. Thank you.

13 MR. McCLOSKEY: Mr. President, I -- this is my last ten minutes

14 but I -- I see it's break time. We just need to finish this up and

15 I'll -- I'll be through.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. I thank you, Mr. McCloskey.

17 We'll have a 25-minute break starting from now.

18 --- Recess taken at 3.45 p.m.

19 --- On resuming at 4.15 p.m.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: So let's make good use of the remaining ten minutes,

21 Mr. McCloskey.

22 MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you, Mr. President.

23 Q. Witness, we still have that up on the screen. Could you go back

24 to number 1 and right before the P in Palma, there looks like some words.

25 Do you know what those -- what that word is and whether that was something

1 you added or can you tell from your writing?

2 A. Yes. I can see that I added this subsequently. This is an

3 abbreviation, DEZ, and that stands for duty officer Palma.

4 Q. Okay. Thank you. Now, let's go to the third change or addition

5 or edit or whatever we want to call it. Can you go down this document and

6 point to anything that you recognise as an edit and circle it?

7 A. Just a moment, sir. Let me try and find such things.

8 [Marks].

9 I can see two dots below.

10 Q. Can you explain that?

11 A. Before the -- this "Halo" here, for the first time we see the

12 designation of the participant and a dash. As we listened to this

13 conversation, we realised that this participant also says, hello and

14 that's why the dots are bold. This was the simplest way of doing it,

15 which means that the above text and the hello are attributed to the same

16 participant.

17 Q. So that second "Halo" is also Mr. J for Jokic in your final text;

18 is that right?

19 A. Yes, sir.

20 Q. Okay. If we can have the -- if we can continue with this document

21 to keep going on it, it goes for -- the next page, I don't know if it's

22 the next page or if we can just go up, I'm not sure how it --

23 JUDGE AGIUS: I don't think we can go to a next page before he

24 puts his signature or his PW number on this page, because they come up

25 separately.

1 JUDGE KWON: Then why don't you let him circle DEZ as well.

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: Good idea.

3 Q. Can you circle DEZ that first thing you spoke of and let's give it

4 a number next in order, 4.

5 A. [Marks] Yes, sir, I've just done it.

6 Q. Okay.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: So we can go to the next page.

8 MR. McCLOSKEY:

9 Q. Go to the next page. And witness, you can always look at the

10 original book, if you'd like, to help clarify things. Okay. From the

11 top, do you see any -- any of your edits that -- can you circle?

12 A. [Marks].

13 Q. What was that?

14 A. This could have been a mistake in letters, maybe an attempt was

15 made to write a word. In any case, it was a grammatical error, and in

16 order to avoid any confusion, I blotted it out.

17 Q. Okay. Let's go to the next one.

18 A. [Marks].

19 Q. What's that?

20 A. This is letter B, which I edited. Originally, it was -- I

21 wouldn't wish to speculate. I believe it was a P but I know that it was

22 edited and changed into B. This is what I can see. And this happened

23 when I listened to the sequence of participants in the conversation and I

24 realised that the participant in question was neither Jokic nor anybody

25 else but that it was somebody speaking at Badem, the switchboard operator

1 at Badem said that. This is the same voice that I marked at the beginning

2 as Badem, and this voice says, "Wait a moment." And it was not said by

3 the person speaking before. I can tell from this transcript that this

4 conversation was not easy to transcribe and that's why there are so many

5 grammatical and other errors in this transcription.

6 [Marks].

7 One more mistake, number 7, this is where I used small letters

8 rather than capitals. I don't know whether immediately or later on, as I

9 went through the text, I realised that it should be a capital letter and

10 that's when I edited this original small letter.

11 Q. Okay. Let me ask you --

12 A. [Marks].

13 Q. Let me ask you to go up just below your circle 6. We see a large

14 B and then a small letter E. Can you tell us anything about that? I

15 think we remember what you said about it, about the conversation, but how

16 about in the drafting? In looking at that and studying it, can you tell

17 us anything about that?

18 A. It transpires from number 6 that this was said by the switchboard

19 operator and that this was -- this could be heard very well. And then he

20 hands it over to somebody else whom I couldn't hear that well. Either I

21 had noise in the headphones or something else, and I couldn't transcribe

22 it. It transpires from the sequence of letters B and E that it was

23 actually B that was speaking, and B stands for Beara [as interpreted].

24 He is the participant who was contacted by Jokic. And all these

25 corrections only say that the conversation had to be listened to several

1 times in order to be transcribed correctly.

2 Q. Well, which that little B, sorry that little E next to the large

3 B, do you know if you added that later or was that something you wrote

4 down at the same time you wrote the big B?

5 A. No, sir. Not at the same time. I would not have done it that

6 way. I would have written more neatly. I gave the name to this

7 participant as I continued listening to the conversation, when Mr. Jokic

8 named that participant and then when I listened to the conversation for

9 the second time and then for the third time and I don't know how many

10 times, that is when I realised how many participants there were in the

11 conversation and then I could mark them, because originally, he was marked

12 only as a participant at Badem.

13 Q. Okay. Then, could you circle that first "Be," and that would be

14 edit number 9?

15 A. [Marks] Yes, I can.

16 Q. And could you look down the rest of the -- the rest of the text

17 and wherever you see a B small e that you added could you circle and

18 number that?

19 A. Yes, sir. Do you want me to put the same number 9 next to every

20 entry?

21 Q. No. I think we can just go in sequence but --

22 A. Thank you. [Marks].

23 Q. We need, I guess, is it a new page so we need to get it marked if

24 we -- or can it be raised?

25 JUDGE AGIUS: I think it can be raised, yeah. I think it can be

1 raised but -- no? Because as it is I think the moment it's zoomed in, it

2 cannot be zoomed further in or out. So I think he has to put his PW

3 number and move to the next or -- to the next part.

4 Witness, could you kindly put in the same area where you have

5 number --

6 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Witness, do you see where you have written number 6

8 on the left-hand side?

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, sir.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Now on the right-hand side there is more or less an

11 empty space between where you can put PW-132. Can you please try to put

12 PW-132 -- yes. It's written here, can you save it again now? He's made

13 PW-132 now. I think I know what I'm talking about. And we will discard

14 the one you saved and we will have this new one. Okay? All right. So,

15 gentlemen, and ladies, the understanding is that the previous one, which

16 did not have the PW-mark on it will be discarded. It was saved but it

17 will be discarded and we will save this one instead which will be the

18 document to be tendered, okay? Understood? Okay. So let's have the same

19 document now, go further down, possibly even zoom.

20 Are we there, Mr. McCloskey, or not?

21 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, we are. Maybe the witness remembers where he

22 left off. We don't need to circle -- we didn't need to start all over

23 again.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: No, of course not.

25 MR. McCLOSKEY:

1 Q. But if you can remember where we left off just continue doing the

2 numbering for this capital B, little E --

3 JUDGE AGIUS: No, no, further down, that's it. Stop there.

4 MR. McCLOSKEY: And I think we are at number 15 -- 16.

5 MR. OSTOJIC: 15 was the last one.

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: So I think we are on, what, 17?

7 JUDGE AGIUS: I'll soon tell you.

8 MR. McCLOSKEY:

9 Q. 16, sorry.

10 A. [Marks]. As far as I can remember, the last number I used was

11 number 15 before this. Yes.

12 Q. I think there is a couple more you haven't circled but I don't

13 have a photographic memory.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: I can always lend you mine.

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This is where I know that I was

16 missing space the first time when Beara spoke. I put number 15 because I

17 was afraid that this could not be recorded.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: We've confirmed it was number 15, the last number.

19 MR. McCLOSKEY:

20 Q. Okay. Be that as it may, all the big Bs little Es, it's the same

21 explanation basically; is that right?

22 A. Yes, sir.

23 Q. Okay. Let's go to one last exhibit, 65 ter 1164, and we can save

24 this, sorry, put your number on it again, we'll save this one.

25 A. [Marks].

1 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay.

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: 1164D. Okay. Could we blow this up a bit?

3 Q. Okay. Now, this is an intercepted document. We can see that it's

4 the 2102 Jokic intercept that we have been talking about. This has been

5 shown to you in a previous trial. You saw it in my office. Do you have

6 any idea what this particular printout is, what unit it belongs to or how

7 this came to be?

8 A. This document is -- was taken over by the unit of state security

9 from us and handed it over to their unit.

10 Q. Okay.

11 MR. McCLOSKEY: I have no further questions, Mr. President.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: So I thank you so much, Mr. McCloskey.

13 Now, who is going first?

14 Mr. Zivanovic, who is appearing for Colonel Popovic, will be the

15 first to cross-examine you.

16 Take your time, Mr. Zivanovic. You indicated yesterday that you

17 will require about an hour and a half.

18 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. Some of

19 the questions that I intended to put have already been put on direct, so

20 I'm sure that my cross-examination will last less time than I intended to.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Go ahead. Thank you, and have a break at quarter to

22 6.00.

23 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.

24 Cross-examination by Mr. Zivanovic:

25 Q. Good afternoon, sir.

1 A. Good afternoon to you, too.

2 Q. Could you please tell me -- can we please go into private session?

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, of course. Let's go into private session,

4 please.

5 [Private session]

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1 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 6.55 p.m.,

2 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 23rd day of

3 November, 2006, at 2.15 p.m.

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