1 Wednesday, 10 January 2007

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 2.18 p.m.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Good afternoon, Madam Registrar, could you kindly

6 call the case, please.

7 THE REGISTRAR: This is IT-05-88-T, the Prosecutor versus Vujadin

8 Popovic et al.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Good afternoon, everybody. I see that all the

10 accused are here. Defence teams have been informed that Mr. Ostojic can't

11 be with us the rest of the week, that he will join again next week.

12 MR. JOSSE: The same for Mr. Krgovic, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you. And I see that you are alone, Mr.

14 Haynes.

15 MR. HAYNES: Mr. Sarapa will be here on Monday as well. Or

16 Tuesday, rather.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. The rest of the teams seem to be okay.

18 Prosecution, Mr. McCloskey on his own, together with his case

19 assistant.

20 Are there any preliminaries on your part? None.

21 Okay. I'll pass on some information. For those of you and also

22 for the record, for public consumption, less than an hour ago we handed

23 down a decision on the Prosecution's third motion for leave to amend Rule

24 65 ter Exhibit list. Are you all aware of this? You are. So I don't

25 need to state anything else on that.

1 Now, you will recall that there is pending confidential

2 Prosecution submission to the Trial Chamber's 12 September 2006 decision

3 on Prosecution confidential motion for admission of written evidence in

4 lieu of viva voce testimony pursuant to Rule 92 bis. This was filed on

5 the 9th of January.

6 The submission of the Prosecution identifies the specific written

7 evidence of Witness number -- Witnesses number 77 and 81, which the

8 Prosecution proposes for admission pursuant to Rule 92 ter. Prosecution

9 also proposes that Witness -- Witness 81's statement be admitted in

10 unredacted form.

11 There is also a purported explanation that intercept one in Annex

12 A of its November 21 motion had not been included in the Rule 65 ter

13 exhibit list because the focus of the Prosecution had been on a different

14 time period. The current submission also gives some indications as to the

15 relevance of this purported intercept.

16 Now, I'm raising all this because Witness number 77 will testify

17 soon after the one who is starting pretty soon, and Witness 81 even before

18 him. So what we have decided to do is because of the urgency of the

19 matter, we are turning on to you to see whether you would like to make any

20 comments on the Prosecution submission of the 9th January. Actually,

21 reminding you at the same time that none of the Defence teams had actually

22 objected to the conversion of the status of Witnesses 77 and 81 from 92

23 bis status to 92 ter. So basically the only issue remaining is

24 essentially whether good cause has been shown for the addition of the

25 intercepts you are all aware of to the Rule 65 ter exhibit list.

1 So I hope I've made myself clear. If there are any questions,

2 please do address them now.

3 Do you wish to comment on the inclusion or insertion of the

4 purported intercept in the 65 ter exhibit list even though or

5 notwithstanding that it had not been therein included earlier? Are you

6 satisfied with the good cause which the Prosecution believes it has

7 shown?

8 Yes, Madam Nikolic.

9 MS. NIKOLIC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honours. I

10 would just like regarding the 9th of January motion by the Prosecution, we

11 would like to be given some time in order to present our answer either by

12 the end of the working day this evening, today, or tomorrow in the

13 morning.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. We'll take it up again tomorrow, but

15 please do put us in the position when we can decide the issue before

16 Witness 71 -- Witness -- not 71, Witness 81 starts giving evidence. You

17 will be using this intercept with Witness 81 or with both?

18 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, just with that witness, but I don't know if

19 the witness will need to discuss the intercept. He doesn't, of course, I

20 don't think, remember it, but it was one of that witness's intercepts,

21 yes.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. I thank you. I thank you both. So we'll

23 visit that again tomorrow.

24 Now, we have been working and basically concluded our in-camera

25 discussions on another motion, and the decision is more or less orally

1 prepared, but we need to give it a final visit tomorrow or later on today.

2 This is decision on motion for Prosecution witnesses one of whom is due to

3 start very shortly and that is Witness number 69. We can here now inform

4 you that although Witness 69 was included in the latest Prosecution motion

5 for protective measures, his fate as regards protective measures had

6 already been decided by us way back in November. So there is no change to

7 that. We can safely proceed with admitting Witness number 69, and he will

8 start giving evidence very shortly, enjoying the same protective measures

9 he had earlier on pursuant to a previous order from a different Chamber,

10 and that is voice distortion, facial distortion, and pseudonym. All

11 right?

12 The others will be dealt with in a written decision that we hope

13 to be able to hand down tomorrow sometime in the morning or later on today

14 if we have -- find time to go through it.

15 I think I have covered -- yes. I've covered everything that I

16 needed to tell you for the time being. Sometime in the course of next

17 week, this is very possible that we will convene a 65 ter meeting in

18 camera, not here, to discuss the future planning of the case. We've had

19 time over the recess to examine thoroughly what has been happening over

20 the past months, and I think it will be useful for everyone to meet and

21 exchange a few views on the matter.

22 Last point I wanted to raise is the following: One of the things

23 we touched upon before we broke for the recess was the question of the

24 satellite images or whatever they are, and, I have enjoined particularly

25 the Defence teams to try and respond to Mr. McCloskey, to the Prosecution,

1 or give a feedback to the invitation that he had extended to you with a

2 view to passing on your specific requests to the US Embassy for further

3 action.

4 Has there been a development in this regard? We just want to

5 know, that's all. Mr. McCloskey.

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: Mr. Ostojic approached me briefly and we had a

7 nice chat about the possibility of him perhaps not having to talk to

8 Mr. Butler, but everyone -- that was as everyone was leaving. So I'm

9 hopeful, but we'll have to continue whatever discussion he may have. No

10 one has asked me to help them with the United States Embassy. They are, I

11 believe, still open for requests, if there are any.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. So I take it when Mr. Ostojic returns

13 next week you will take the matter up with him again with the

14 understanding that he will be speaking forth rest of the Defence teams and

15 not just for the Beara Defence. We need to registered some progress in

16 that area, because time is flying and the sooner it's resolved the better

17 it is.

18 Okay. Can we bring in the witness, please? I think you need to

19 bring down the curtains.

20 [The witness enters court]

21 WITNESS: WITNESS PW-129

22 [Witness answered through interpreter]

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Good afternoon to you, sir. Welcome to this

24 Tribunal. You are about to start giving evidence. Our Rules require --

25 you have given evidence before. Anyway, so you know what the procedure

1 is. Madam Usher is going to give the text of a solemn declaration which

2 you are required to enter before you can start giving evidence. Please

3 read it allowed and that will be your undertaking with this Tribunal.

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Very well. I solemnly declare that I

5 will speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: So I thank you. Please take a seat. Make yourself

7 comfortable.

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: I'm going to explain to you very briefly what's

10 going to happen. The Prosecution has asked on your behalf that you be

11 granted some protective measures. We have granted you the same protective

12 measures that you enjoyed in the previous trial, namely the use of a

13 pseudonym, voice distortion and facial distortion. I suppose these have

14 been explained to you and you are satisfied with this arrangement.

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I am.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. McCloskey will go first, and then you will be

17 cross-examined by the various Defence teams.

18 Mr. McCloskey, please, since this witness will be testifying with

19 voice distortion, it's important that before and while he is speaking all

20 other microphones are switched off. All right? Yes, Mr. McCloskey.

21 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Mr. President. And like we have done in the

22 past, can I seek leave to sit down during the questioning and --

23 JUDGE AGIUS: No problem, Mr. McCloskey.

24 Examination by Mr. McCloskey:

25 MR. McCLOSKEY: And Ms. Stewart will be behind me with a sharp pen

1 if I don't hit the mike. But could we start off first with -- if the

2 witness could take a look at the pseudonym, which is P02338 and tell us if

3 that's him.

4 A. Only the first letter of my name is different on the paper, but

5 other than that my name is on the paper.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Right. Can I have a look at it please.

7 All right.

8 Sir, I'm going to give it back to you, and you will be given a

9 coloured pen. Could you please make the necessary correction and give it

10 back to the usher.

11 So thank you. That will go under seal, and we'll give it a number

12 later on.

13 MR. McCLOSKEY:

14 Q. Good afternoon, Witness.

15 A. Good afternoon.

16 Q. And you recall providing information to the Office of the

17 Prosecutor on May 5th, 1999?

18 A. Yes. I gave a statement on May 5, 1999.

19 Q. And have you had a chance to read that statement in the last day

20 or so?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. Is the information on that statement true and correct?

23 A. Yes, it is.

24 Q. And if you were to be asked in -- similar questions or the same

25 questions would your answers be the same?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. All right. I will stand and read a short summary of that

3 statement.

4 The witness is a Bosnian Muslim and was born in Zenica in 1955.

5 In 1979 and 1980, he performed his mandatory military service with the

6 JNA. Prior to the war, the witness lived in Bosnia and worked as a mining

7 engineer. In 1992, he joined the BiH army and served as a regular soldier

8 in the area of Mount Majevica until August 1994 when he was then selected

9 for a position with the Electronic Warfare Unit of the 2nd Corps?

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. McCloskey, just a moment.

11 May we go into private session for a short while, please.

12 [Private session]

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22 [Open session]

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Sorry for the interruption. Yes. We are in open

24 session again. I apologise to you again for the interruption,

25 Mr. McCloskey, but it was necessary. Please go ahead.

1 MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay. He was then selected for a position with

2 the Electronic Warfare Unit of the 2nd Corps and was based in the northern

3 site of operations, as it's been referred to in this Tribunal and as he

4 has referred to more specifically in other statements.

5 On joining the unit, he received a one-month course with about 30

6 other individuals on the basics of radio technology, the use of various

7 radio equipment, and how to tape record radio communications.

8 After this course, he was stationed in the northern site along

9 with about 15 other soldiers. He began his work at the northern site as a

10 regular soldier. He worked on a 7- to 10-day shift with a maximum of 10

11 other people at any one time. Some people would monitor conversations

12 while others were resting. Due to the shortage of quality equipment, it

13 was it only possible for two to five people to listen to radio traffic at

14 any one time.

15 While on duty, the witness would listen to radio conversations,

16 tape the important ones, and then transcribe the conversations from the

17 tape into books. These conversations were transcribed into the books by

18 listening to them multiple times. After taping a conversation, he would

19 normally write it into a notebook as soon as practicable. It was normal

20 to listen to conversations for two hours and rest for four. He would

21 normally finalise his work after the two-hour period. After writing the

22 conversation in the notebook, he would hand it over to someone for typing.

23 He had nothing further to do with the conversation or proofreading the

24 typed version.

25 In early January, 1995, he was appointed shift manager. In this

1 role, he continued his same work with the additional responsibilities of

2 organising logistics, discipline and other matters. He recalls working

3 during the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995, and recalls that there was not

4 much radio traffic at that time and his main concern was the route of the

5 refugees who were leaving the enclave.

6 The witness recalled some conversations from the Srebrenica time

7 period including a conversation where a BiH commander named Semso

8 Muminovic was requesting to meet with Vinko Pandurevic and a conversation

9 where someone from Konjevic Polje was asking for an excavator from

10 Zvornik. The witness stated he was able to recognise several voices of

11 people he heard over the radio, including General Simic, General Tolimir,

12 and General Zivanovic.

13 The witness was asked what the term "Zlatar" meant and he stated

14 it was the name of the Drina Corps headquarters in Vlasenica. He also

15 recalled that the code name for the Zvornik Brigade was Palma. The

16 witness recognised the code name Panorama, but at the time he was

17 questioned by the OTP he could not recall what it stood for.

18 The witness was aware that the state security was using the same

19 location and doing similar work in 1995.

20 Okay. That -- that ends the summary. I have a few additional

21 questions and a few specific intercepts I would like to ask the witness

22 about, and -- but for the record, his 92 ter statement is P02337. And if

23 I could sit down, it will help me turn this machine off when I need to.

24 Q. All right, Witness. Can you briefly give an outline of your

25 educational background for us, but --

1 MR. McCLOSKEY: If we could go into private session for this,

2 Your Honour. This section may -- may be helpful to be in private.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Sure. Let's go into private session for a while,

4 please.

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17 [Open session]

18 JUDGE AGIUS: We are in open session.

19 MR. McCLOSKEY:

20 Q. Can you explain to us why you feel the handwritten version is the

21 more accurate?

22 A. The version that I wrote is more accurate. As for what happened

23 to the typed or printed versions, I don't know.

24 Q. Do you recall working with a typist in getting a time version done

25 or anything like that?

1 A. It was very rare. It didn't happen, practically, very often.

2 Q. Okay. But can you -- you cannot discount that it may have

3 happened at times, is that what you're saying?

4 A. Very rarely. It happened very rarely.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Zivanovic.

6 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] I think that we have a small

7 problem here with the translation. The witness said "skoro nikad,"

8 "almost never," but the way it was interpreted was, "No, not very often,"

9 but the witness said, "almost never."

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Are you referring to page 14, line 1? Because what

11 I have there is it was very rare. 14, 1, no?

12 THE INTERPRETER: We cannot hear the attorney.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. It didn't happen practically very often. And

14 according to you it should be? "Almost never"?

15 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] The witness said that this did not

16 happen, that this hardly ever happened.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Witness, you've followed what Mr. Zivanovic has

18 pointed out. Do you agree with him?

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It means that this cooperation is

20 not ruled out but it very seldom happened. The degree of that cooperation

21 and the way it can be expressed as hardly ever or not often or almost

22 never, it's just a degree.

23 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Well, the sense of my remark was

24 that the witness said "almost never." I mean, we can interpret that in

25 different ways, but this is what the witness said, "almost never."

1 JUDGE AGIUS: We can close the matter there. That's clear enough

2 to me.

3 Mr. McCloskey.

4 MR. McCLOSKEY:

5 Q. All right. I'd like to try if we could to go over some of the --

6 the intercepts and ask you a couple of questions about them.

7 If we could start with 65 ter 1198, and if we could have the

8 printout version in B/C/S. I don't think we -- people could refer to

9 their -- their packet. That's 1198C for translation. The translation is

10 not the main point here on this particular question, but it might help.

11 And if we can blow that up so that it can be seen. Let's keep

12 going down slowly a bit so we can -- we're looking for a word,

13 "Kovacevici," or something to that effect.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Madam Registrar, is this being broadcast? No? All

15 right. Okay.

16 MR. McCLOSKEY: I'm sorry, I may have given the wrong number. No,

17 it's 1198. Excuse me.

18 Okay. Could we keep going. Sorry, I'm not mixed up. We need to

19 go to the next page. Keep going down, please. Okay. You can stop right

20 there.

21 Q. The conversation I'm directing your attention to is this one that

22 says "kanal" or "channel" 5, and we see the word down at the bottom,

23 "Kovacevicima." And this has been translated to: "At 2006 hours

24 Blagojevic reports that 50 men left and he has 60 more down in

25 Kovacevici."

1 Now, could we go to the same conversation in the handwritten

2 format. And that is 1198A.

3 Okay. And we -- if you could take a look at that, I think it's

4 clear to everyone that we don't see anywhere in this intercept any

5 reference to Kovacevici, and I can read the latest intercepted -- or the

6 translation that we've provided everyone. "At 2006 hours Blagojevic

7 reports that five minutes or half an hour ago 50 men left and that he has

8 60 more down there in reserve."

9 That's 1198 D. That's a revised translation.

10 Now, I know it was a long time ago, Witness, but do you know --

11 do you know how "Kovacevici" got put in the printout version as opposed

12 to "in reserve" in the handwritten version that you wrote?

13 A. I don't know that.

14 Q. All right. Let's go to another one.

15 JUDGE KWON: Mr. McCloskey, do we have those documents in our

16 binder or not?

17 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, you should, and we -- we've got the -- the

18 translations are -- are pretty new, and they just -- they just came in.

19 We worked those out with the witness in the last day or two.

20 JUDGE KWON: Actually, I couldn't find the B/C/S version in tab

21 11.

22 JUDGE PROST: I had the same problem.

23 MR. McCLOSKEY: Well, we might have -- we might have missed it.

24 Yes. It's not tab 11, it's tab 13 in your version. You have a more

25 updated version than I do. So you'll find it in 13. There was a few

1 additions, and it -- it changed our numbering system. The original ones

2 we gave the Defence should be tab 11.

3 JUDGE KWON: My index says that tab 13 is 65 ter 1201. There

4 should be some mistake.

5 MR. McCLOSKEY: I apologise, Your Honour. You're correct. I am

6 the one that's not updated, and -- but hopefully we'll be able to sort

7 that out, and I'll try to make that clear as we go.

8 JUDGE KWON: In e-court system your number was right, 1198.

9 MR. McCLOSKEY: Janet's right, you're right. I've got my old

10 notes, so that's the problem.

11 Q. Okay. If we could go to -- it's a conversation dated 16 July at

12 1529 hours, and it's 11 -- 1192 should be the 65 ter number. In your

13 packet it should be 7 -- Defence, it should be 5, if you've got an old

14 one. Six. And if we could put on the version, the handwritten version

15 which is 1192B. Sorry, 1192A.

16 And if we could go down to the very end of this -- this -- keep

17 going to the very end, the next page. All right.

18 Now, in you could follow it in B/C/S. I will read an English

19 translation to part of this, which I hope will get to the issue I'm trying

20 to get out, and that is starting with the line: "Well, the line is down.

21 I can't hear you at all. Hello. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Have

22 Vinko, that. Since we heard that 01 had said it."

23 Now, if you could find the B/C/S version of that. The problem

24 here is that the letters 01 can be view two ways. They can be viewed as

25 01 or O-N by the way it's been written. And the word "on" means "he" in

1 B/C/S. Can you tell us by looking at your handwritten version whether

2 it's an O-N or a 01?

3 A. I can't be sure. That was a long time ago. I can't recall.

4 Q. Now, there's a -- let's go to other intercept of 15 July, 0828

5 hours, which will be 65 ter 1170, and we might as well go to the printout

6 version of this, which is --

7 MR. McCLOSKEY: It should be tab 3, Your Honours. It's 1170C. If

8 we could blow that up just so we have the beginning of this conversation.

9 Scroll down a bit. Okay. Down more. All right.

10 Q. Now, in looking at this conversation in the top we see Jocic,

11 question mark in parentheses, X, Y, Pero. Then if we look at the

12 conversation, can you tell us looking at that conversation how many people

13 are talking to each other based on this transcript?

14 A. The way it is put here would make me conclude that there were four

15 participants, but, but I don't think this has been transferred to the

16 computer in a proper way.

17 Q. Well, up at the top it says Jocic. Do you know -- can you relate

18 Jocic to any other -- any of these either X, Y, or Pero? This Jocic,

19 should he be viewed on his own?

20 A. As a rule, if something is in the brackets and if there is a

21 question mark, then the person transcribing is having doubts as to the

22 identity of that person and ascribes another sign to that person, namely

23 the X.

24 Q. Okay. So who then is Jocic ascribed to based on your knowledge of

25 this intercept and experience?

1 A. I don't have my original text here. Therefore, I can only assume

2 based on this that Jocic is the X.

3 Q. Okay. Well, let's to the -- go then to the original. If we could

4 go -- that will be the same number, but it will be the letter B. Sorry,

5 letter A.

6 Okay. Now we have the hand-written version up there. Does that

7 help you determine if this name Jocic can be ascribed to any of the

8 participants, X, Y, or Pero?

9 A. Jocic should be the X.

10 Q. All right. Thank you. Let's go to 15 July intercept dated --

11 well, time of 0834 hours. It should be 65 ter 11 --

12 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment before you proceed. Perhaps you can have

13 him clear this up. Looking at the same document, handwritten document,

14 and following up on what he's just stated, that Jocic is the X. Now, the

15 first line after that is crossed. Then there is X saying , "Alo." Then

16 Y, who says either -- "Alo." Then X says something, and Y says, "Dobro."

17 And then it's X and P and X and P and X and P, et cetera. But how can he

18 explain or stand by his explanation that X and Jocic -- all right. I

19 think there might be an explanation.

20 No. Let's me take that back. I think it is understandable as it

21 is. Okay. It is understandable as it is. Okay.

22 MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you, Mr. President. And again, if we could

23 go to what is 1171. Let's go to the handwritten version. It's tab 4, and

24 the handwritten version is B.

25 It's at the bottom, and it's very short. It should be under that

1 time I gave. Yes. And just to try to be helpful, this says X and

2 Jevdevic, and then it says X: "Semso Muminovic is asking for V.

3 Pandurevic to call him on 14985."

4 Q. Now, this doesn't appear to be a question and answer that we see

5 most of the time in these notebooks. Is this summary as I would call it,

6 is that what it is, a summary?

7 A. That is correct. It is just a very brief summary.

8 Q. And can you explain why you would have summarised a conversation

9 as opposed to writing out the -- what was said as we've seen in other

10 notebooks?

11 A. Seldom did it happen that one needed to extract an important piece

12 of information out of a seemingly unimportant conversation. Should an

13 information crop up during a conversation and the conversation is

14 unimportant as a whole, whereas that one piece of information is, then we

15 would just make a very brief summary as a rule.

16 Q. All right. Let's go to one last area, and I think this will be

17 easiest to go on the ELMO. I want to show you an original notebook, and

18 we'll get some help with the -- the ELMO. And the original notebook is

19 P02343, and it has various ERN pages on it. And if we could go to ERN

20 page at first 0781721. And I've actually marked it with a little -- it

21 should be the first little blue sticky there.

22 And if -- we'll put this on the ELMO and you can take it look at

23 it, but basically it's a simple question. As we were going through some

24 of these notebooks, I noticed that there was a name, Fuad, written over

25 some of the handwritten entries and usually in a different coloured ink.

1 And this, we now have that in front of us. Can you --

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: And we better -- I think we -- we better go into

3 private session on this Mr. President?

4 JUDGE AGIUS: I was thinking about that, Mr. McCloskey. Let's

5 just do that.

6 [Private session]

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11 [Open session]

12 JUDGE AGIUS: So we are in open session now. Mr. McCloskey has

13 finished his examination-in-chief. Mr. Zivanovic is about to start his

14 cross-examination.

15 Mr. Zivanovic.

16 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Would you kindly advise the witness to allow a short

18 interval between question and answer, and could I also invite you to do

19 the same.

20 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] I will do so, Your Honour.

21 Cross-examination by Mr. Zivanovic:

22 Q. [Interpretation] I would kindly ask you to pause after my question

23 for a few section before you provide your answers so to enable the

24 interpreters to interpret accurately and timely.

25 Could you tell me which type of devices you had at the facility

1 where you were one of the shift leaders or squad commanders?

2 A. I cannot recall all types of devices, but we had tapping devices

3 which used tapes.

4 Q. Thank you. Can you tell me how many workstations were there in

5 the facility?

6 A. Between two and five workstations in the room we worked in.

7 Q. Did you ever compile any reports about that?

8 A. About the number of workstations, no. No reports.

9 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Could we please show Exhibit 1D128

10 to the witness.

11 THE REGISTRAR: Sorry, I don't have it in the system.

12 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Could you please zoom in a little

13 bit.

14 Q. Sir, do you recognise this document?

15 A. I don't know which document it is.

16 Q. Do you see it on the screen?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Can you see that it's a document with the radio relay listening

19 station and its name in the heading of the document, and then there's the

20 date, the 18th of February, 1995?

21 A. Yes, I see that.

22 Q. Is it also written: "Subject: Review of workstations with the

23 accompanying equipment"?

24 A. I see that.

25 Q. Can you see that there are three workstations there?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Can you see that each of those workstations has the appropriate

3 equipment?

4 A. Yes, I can see that.

5 Q. Can I just ask for the next page to be shown, please. Do you see

6 the remark? It was all right just a little bit before. A remark where it

7 says: "All equipment are serviced by one operator." And also the range

8 of the equipment is mentioned.

9 MR. McCLOSKEY: Excuse me. If I could just make sure we're not

10 transmitting this. I'm --

11 JUDGE AGIUS: I just made sure that we are not, in fact. Thank

12 you.

13 Go ahead.

14 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] That's how I understood it as

15 well.

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. I see the remark that all

17 equipment is serviced by one operator.

18 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. Can we look at the next page, please, of this document. Could you

20 please zoom in at the end of the page.

21 Can you see it's a document you drafted? It says: "Section

22 commander."

23 A. Yes. My name is signed here in this version, but I do not recall

24 drafting this report.

25 Q. Can you please tell me something about the antennas that were used

1 at this facility?

2 A. I can tell you very little. It was a long time ago. I've

3 forgotten 90 per cent of all those things.

4 Q. Do you -- are you knowledgeable about antennas in general?

5 A. We did have some hours on antennas in our course.

6 Q. My question referred to you personally. I'm not talking about the

7 whole group now.

8 A. I have basic knowledge about antennas.

9 Q. Thank you. Can you please now look at Defence Exhibit 1D127?

10 Are you familiar with this document?

11 A. No.

12 Q. No? Can you please tell me -- well, you see that four antennas

13 are listed here. They're described as operational, and then your name is

14 signed at the bottom. Do you recall that?

15 A. No, I do not.

16 Q. Thank you. Can we now show the witness Defence Exhibit 1D149.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Before I forget, Madam Registrar, please do remember

18 me and you, of course, that these two documents that have been referred to

19 need to be put under seal. All right?

20 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. Do you see this document now?

22 A. Yes, I do.

23 Q. Do you also see that it also refers to antennas, their outside

24 circumference and depth? And I can see that this report was again

25 submitted by you. Do you recall that?

1 A. No, I do not.

2 Q. Can you please tell me, do you remember at all if you had any

3 problems with antennas?

4 A. I don't recall any particular problems with the antennas.

5 Q. Do you remember how the antennas were placed?

6 A. I cannot remember it in detail, but I know that these were just

7 regular antennas placed in the direction of the devices that we were

8 listening to.

9 Q. Do you recall having problems with antennas because of the wind?

10 A. No, I don't remember that detail.

11 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Can we now look at Exhibit 1D140?

12 It's a Defence exhibit.

13 Q. As you can see, this is a report on radio reconnaissance or

14 surveillance. Can we now look at the bottom of this page?

15 Can you please look at the remark. It states: "During

16 measurements outside it was very windy so that the antennas were moving a

17 lot." And then there is a comparison of what the deviation is and so on,

18 and then the signature is of the commander of the section.

19 A. I cannot recall the particulars in these reports.

20 Q. Can you please look at the beginning of this document, please? Do

21 you see that this is September 1995?

22 A. Yes, I see that.

23 Q. Thank you.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. McCloskey.

25 MR. McCLOSKEY: I haven't said anything, but I'm finding it hard

1 the relevance that the wind is blowing antennas a bit in September 1995.

2 I understand these are documents, but I just ...

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Do you wish to remark on that, Mr. Zivanovic?

4 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, I would like to remind

5 Mr. McCloskey that he presented evidence about the antennas being placed

6 on pillars or pylons, and I will get to that, but the question really

7 should indicate the time period when these posts or pillars were being

8 used. Thank you.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: I stand to be corrected by my colleagues obviously

10 but the relevance is that there may be the possibility of point proving

11 because of these problems proper monitoring of conversations was not

12 possible. Is this what you -- what you're trying to -- okay. All right.

13 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Absolutely.

14 [Trial Chamber confers]

15 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Do proceed, but go straight to the

16 point, please, Mr. Zivanovic. If you have a particular period in mind in

17 particular, go straight there.

18 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Very well, Your Honours.

19 Could the witness be shown Defence Exhibit 1D131.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: And any time it is convenient to you, we should have

21 a break in about four minutes', three minutes' time. Any time you choose,

22 Mr. Zivanovic.

23 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Could you please scroll the page

24 down.

25 Q. Can you see that under paragraph 1 in this dispatch it says: "To

1 install the pillars as soon as possible and set up the antennas"?

2 A. I see that.

3 Q. Can you please scroll this document to the beginning. Does it say

4 the 20th of November, 1995, in the heading of this document?

5 A. Yes, I can see the heading of the document.

6 Q. Thank you.

7 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, we can go on the

8 break now.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's go into open session, please. I think we were

10 in -- okay. Let's go into break for 20 minutes, please. Try to be as

11 punctual. We need to recover as much time as possible. Thank you.

12 MR. McCLOSKEY: We don't have any estimates that I'm aware of --

13 of time.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: I do have estimates. The Popovic and Miletic teams,

15 45 minutes each; Beara, 25 minutes; Borovcanin, 20 minutes, Gvero, 15

16 minutes -- sorry, yeah, and 15 minutes it's Nikolic and Pandurevic. This

17 is what I have. I mean, with some sense of practicality, we should finish

18 with this witness.

19 MR. JOSSE: We don't have any questions.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Okay. I'm hopeful, optimistic we should

21 finish with this witness today.

22 MR. McCLOSKEY: Could we ask those to be sent to us, and we also

23 have not received any indication of what you might be using for

24 cross-examination. This can be troublesome and there is no translations

25 for some of them. I think we're okay, but just a reminder.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: We have make allowances. I think most of the

2 components -- members of the Defence teams have just arrived like we have,

3 so these are minor leniences that can be forgiven on this occasion at

4 least.

5 So we'll have a 20-minute break.

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

7 --- On resuming at 4.08 p.m.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Monsieur Zivanovic.

9 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. Could you please tell me if your unit had prepared plans for

11 anti-electronic warfare prepared in advance?

12 A. I was not informed about any plans.

13 Q. Thank you. Can you please tell me which zones or areas were

14 monitored by your unit?

15 A. The zones changed. We surveyed the area of the Drina Corps, the

16 Bijeljina Corps. These were the two main areas. Sometimes the focus

17 would shift to areas where there was combat, and that's where we would be

18 monitoring the traffic.

19 Q. Thank you. Can you please tell me if you remember when you

20 received the order to direct your systems to the Drina Corps area?

21 A. I cannot recall that date.

22 Q. I would now like to ask you to look at Defence Exhibit 1D154,

23 please. Can you see this document? And can you see that in paragraph 1

24 it says: "All antenna systems or equipment to be redirected to the

25 monitoring of the Drina Corps and the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps areas of

1 responsibility." Do you agree that's what is written here?

2 A. There is the possibility that that order existed, but I do not

3 recall receiving it.

4 Q. And that it had the instruction to operate on the

5 Zvornik-Vlasenica-Han Pijesak and Srebrenica-Bratunac-Vlasenica

6 frequencies.

7 A. Yes. This did take place, but I really don't recall the

8 details.

9 Q. Thank you very much. Can we scroll the page up so that we see

10 the top of the page, please.

11 Can you see the date 8th of August, 1995, here?

12 A. Yes, I see that.

13 Q. Thank you. Can you please tell me whether your unit sent reports

14 on radio reconnaissance for specific months?

15 A. I don't recall such reports.

16 Q. Thank you. In your statement that you gave before you came to

17 testify as a witness, I saw, and you repeated in subsequent statements,

18 things about notebooks. You said that notebooks were received from the

19 command and that they were filled when they were full. Then you would

20 receive new notebooks. Is this correct?

21 A. Yes. That's how it was for a certain period of time.

22 Q. Does that mean that new notebooks would not be opened for as long

23 as the current notebook had space to write in?

24 A. Yes, that's how it was.

25 Q. I also saw in your statement that the notebooks were used from

1 February 1995. Until then the notes were made on pieces of paper. Is

2 this correct?

3 A. Yes, that is correct.

4 Q. Can you now clarify one thing, please? There are certain numbers

5 on all of the notebooks. Can you tell us who assigned those numbers?

6 Perhaps I can remind you. There was a notebook that was shown to

7 you that bore the number 92. Another one had the number 29. Do you know

8 who assigned those numbers? Was that something that was done in your

9 unit?

10 A. I really don't remember exactly how that worked.

11 Q. Did you do it?

12 A. No, I did not.

13 Q. Thank you. I would now like us to look at two intercepts that you

14 transcribed that are in the notebook. This is exhibit of the Prosecution

15 from the 65 ter list with the number 1001.

16 THE INTERPRETER: 1201, interpreter's correction.

17 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] And in the tab system it bears the

18 number 8. No, actually not number 8. It's tab number 13.

19 THE REGISTRAR: Could the counsel specify A, B, or C, please.

20 MR. McCLOSKEY: Judges' tab 15, I think.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Thirteen we already came across before.

22 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes. In the Serbian it is

23 00800633. I believe this is the letter B, the document marked with B.

24 Q. You've recognised this previously as being your handwriting. I

25 wanted to know this: Can you recall whether you heard this conversation

1 clearly?

2 A. I cannot remember whether I was able to hear it clearly.

3 Q. Thank you. I will not press this any further then.

4 Could you please look at another intercept. It is number 1224.

5 In our folder it is tab 16.

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: Judges' tab 18.

7 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] It is B. Could you please scroll

8 down the page.

9 Q. It is this particular intercept. You've also recognised this as

10 being your handwriting. Could you please look at page number 2. Could

11 you clarify the remark for us, the underlined item. It says: "In the

12 background one can hear French."

13 JUDGE AGIUS: It's okay.

14 Go ahead, Mr. Zivanovic.

15 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. Can you recall and explain to us what this was about?

17 A. In this particular conversation one could overhear the French

18 language. There was the original language of the participants, and in the

19 background one could hear a male voice speaking French. That's all.

20 Q. If you look at the previous text with the conversation itself, you

21 will see that we have only one participant. As far as I understood, you

22 were unable to hear the other participant. If you wish, you could -- you

23 could look at the documents so as to be able to remind yourself of the

24 entire contents.

25 A. I -- I've seen it.

1 Q. Therefore, when you say that in the background you can hear

2 French, does it mean that it was the other collocutor or was it at the

3 place where the person whom you could understand was? Can you explain

4 that?

5 A. If you cannot hear a certain participant, then you cannot hear his

6 background noise. Therefore, the French must have occurred at the place

7 where the first person was.

8 Q. Therefore, it was at the place where you could hear that -- where

9 the person whom you could hear was?

10 A. Yes, I believe so.

11 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. I have no

12 further questions.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, Mr. Zivanovic.

14 Have you agreed amongst yourself who is going next? Mr. Meek.

15 Mr. McCloskey, if we could -- you know, because the days and the

16 weeks and the months will pass, and we'll need to return to these

17 documents, obviously, and also the index that accompanies them. Could you

18 instruct someone from your team to provide us with an updated, correct

19 index; in other words, reflecting the documents as they appear behind the

20 respective tabs?

21 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Mr. President. Ms. Stewart has got that.

22 Thanks.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.

24 So, Mr. Meek.

25 MR. MEEK: Thank you, Mr. President, Your Honours.

1 Cross-examination by Mr. Meek:

2 Q. Good afternoon, Witness. How are you?

3 A. Good afternoon. I'm fine, thank you.

4 Q. I have a few questions for you. I would like to ask -- or confirm

5 with you that your educational background which you previously talked

6 about had nothing whatsoever with the electronic warfare that you found

7 yourself involved in, in 1994 and 1995 in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Am I

8 correct?

9 A. You are.

10 Q. Further, I want to make sure I'm correct in -- on this position,

11 that since you had been a common soldier in the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina

12 up to the time in August of 1994 when you were shifted over to the

13 electronic warfare division, your duties as a common soldier prior to that

14 time also had nothing whatsoever to do with the electronic warfare in

15 which you found yourself in August of 1994; correct?

16 A. It is.

17 Q. Could you please tell me and tell the Court where it was that you

18 obtained the 30-day training of which you've testified?

19 A. I attended the training in Sarajevo.

20 Q. Witness, can you tell us, please, approximately how many trainees

21 were with you during that one-month period in Sarajevo?

22 A. There may have been around 30 or slightly more.

23 Q. And with 30 or slightly more trainees, how many individuals did

24 you have training yourself and the other 29 or 30 trainees?

25 A. Well, we had the practical and the theoretical part, and the

1 practical part was attended by everyone.

2 Q. And the theoretical part was not attended by everyone, then?

3 A. I said that during the theoretical part we were all present at the

4 same time, and when we had practical exercises we were then split into

5 groups.

6 Q. How large would those groups be, if you recall?

7 A. I cannot recall exactly. Between 5 and 10. There were three

8 centres, so each group would comprise some 5 to 10 men.

9 Q. Witness, when you say 5 to 10 men comprising a group, that

10 would be a group of trainees such as you being one of those men. Am

11 I correct?

12 A. You are. Our group would then attend some practical exercises.

13 Q. Thank you. Now, when you're in the -- we're speaking of the

14 theoretical groups; correct? Pardon me. The practical part of it, you

15 had 9 to 10 students or trainees. How many individuals would you have

16 training this group?

17 A. The practical part of the training was conducted in the centres

18 which trained other people besides ourselves. Therefore, we used their

19 instructors. I don't know how many they had.

20 Q. Well, I'm just trying to ask. I'm trying to clarify that if you

21 were in a group of 9, 10 or 11 trainees, you have no independent

22 recollection today if you had one instructors or two instructors?

23 A. We attended the training at the surveillance centre. There were

24 several people there. I don't know how many exactly, though. And we

25 worked with those men.

1 Q. Witness, do you recall during the practical aspect of the training

2 at the centre, was it such that each trainee had an instructor such as

3 one-on-one, or would five, for example, trainees have one instructor, or

4 would all 10 of you maybe in a group have one instructor? That's my

5 question.

6 A. I understand your question. Sometimes there was one instructor

7 per three men. It was never on one-to-one basis.

8 Q. It was also at times 1 on 10, sir?

9 A. I don't think we ever had such a situation.

10 Q. Perhaps you can't do this, but can you give me an average of the

11 trainees in regards to how many people were training them on the average

12 during this 30-day period?

13 A. I'm afraid we are talking at cross-purposes. We are talking about

14 the theoretical part where the whole group was present, and then there

15 have the practical part when we were split into groups. That's how we

16 attended the practical part of the training.

17 Q. I apologise. Perhaps the question was -- is worded improperly,

18 because we were talking about the practical training and I was still on

19 that issue. So in the practical aspect of your training, what was the

20 average trainee -- number of trainees per person training, or persons?

21 A. It was two to three men.

22 Q. Now, since you had the -- both types of training, can you tell me,

23 did the practical aspect of this 30-day training encompass what percentage

24 of that time?

25 A. Not much, I think. Perhaps some 20 per cent, not more, although I

1 cannot tell you anything more precise than that.

2 Q. So would it be a fair statement, then, theoretically -- the

3 theoretic training took up 80 per cent of that month as opposed to

4 approximately 20 per cent of practical training; correct?

5 A. The theoretical part comprised most of the training, much more

6 than the practical aspect. Therefore, such a ratio could have been in

7 place.

8 Q. And if I understand the statement which you gave the OTP in 1999

9 well, the folks that were training you were not experts, were they? They

10 were just merely civilians with some knowledge in this field and other

11 colleagues with some knowledge of the field. Isn't that a fact, sir?

12 A. The composition was mixed. There was civilians and some people

13 who worked at various places. But in any case, there were some

14 civilians.

15 Q. And you will agree with me -- [French on English channel].

16 JUDGE AGIUS: I'm receiving French. That possibly can be

17 corrected now. All right.

18 MR. MEEK:

19 Q. But you will agree with me, Witness that during this 30-day or

20 one-month course which you went to with 30 other individuals, you were not

21 trained by any experts in this area but only by civilians and colleagues

22 who had some knowledge about this type of interception activity. Isn't

23 that correct?

24 A. I beg to disagree with your assessment.

25 Q. And tell me how you disagree with that, sir.

1 A. All the people who came were knowledgeable about the things they

2 taught us.

3 Q. Yes. Witness, I'm not going to disagree with you that in your

4 statement that you gave to the Office of the Prosecutor on the 5th of May

5 of 1999 that you stated in regards the 30-day training, the one-month

6 training period, and correct me if I am wrong, that this -- you were

7 taught the basics of radio technology; correct?

8 A. We were trained in basics of radio technology and other areas

9 important for the duties we were to perform.

10 Q. Well, when you gave this statement to the Office of the Prosecutor

11 on the 5th of May of 1999, weren't you endeavouring, Witness, to tell them

12 in the greatest detail possible what that one-month training had been

13 comprised of?

14 A. I don't have my statement before me, but I believe I said it

15 covered several areas. I may have omitted some, but I did make an effort

16 in specifying that there were some -- several areas.

17 Q. Witness, I'm just going to read this to see if I can refresh your

18 recollection and move on. You told the Office of the Prosecutor on 5 May

19 1999 when you were interviewed, quote -- and this would be the third

20 paragraph down in your statement, quote: "On joining the unit, I was

21 given a one-month course where I learnt the basics of radio technology.

22 This involved using the equipment and how to tape material. The training

23 was run along the lines of a school with colleagues and civilians who had

24 knowledge of these topics training us. While I was training there, there

25 were about 30 other students."

1 Does at that refresh your recollection, sir?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. And everything that I just read out, were all of -- of what you

4 just mentioned, the several areas covered during this training. Put it

5 all in there, and I just read it all to you out of your statement;

6 correct?

7 A. The notion of radio technology is a very comprehensive area which

8 could be broken into several parts.

9 Q. Would you agree would me that the -- that the notion of radio

10 technology is very comprehensive area and it can be broken into a lot more

11 than several parts? It can be broken into many parts. Wouldn't you

12 agree, sir?

13 A. Certainly.

14 Q. And when you went to this 30-day course and it was run like a

15 school, did you go to classes Monday through Friday, sir?

16 A. I cannot recall exactly the way the curriculum was organised in

17 terms of days.

18 Q. Do you recall, Witness, whether you had days off, or were you in

19 class every day for 30 straight days?

20 A. I think we were off for one day a week.

21 Q. Okay. And on the days you weren't off, can you just generally, to

22 the best of your recollection, tell the Court, please, approximately what

23 time you'd start in the morning and what time you would break for lunch,

24 what time you would then reconvene in the afternoon, and what time you

25 would finish that day?

1 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Meek, I can assure you we're being very, very,

2 very patient allowing you to proceed with this line of questions.

3 MR. MEEK: And I'm about done, Judge.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: But there is a limit, and I think you've just

5 exceeded it.

6 MR. MEEK: Yeah, and I understand Your Honour's position. I just

7 would like the one question - I'm done with this - how many hours a day

8 did he spend in the training. If he can tell me. If he can't, fine.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Come on. Let's round it up as soon as possible,

10 please.

11 MR. MEEK:

12 Q. Can you estimate how many hours in a day you were training? How

13 many hours a day would you train when you were training?

14 A. It could have been between six and eight hours a day. Not more

15 than that, I think.

16 Q. Now, just one series of questions or one issue here. Before --

17 either during the training or before going to the location where you were

18 intercepting these communications in July of 1995, were you ever briefed

19 on how you should determine whether a conversation was one of interest

20 that you should tape as opposed to one that you shouldn't tape?

21 A. There were remarks made on how to decide or how to pinpoint an

22 important conversation.

23 Q. Can you tell me where the remarks were made and give me an idea of

24 one such remark?

25 A. During the classes there was a topic which had to do with the

1 analysis of data reaching the operational centres. The operational

2 centres sought a certain level of quality of information, and we were

3 asked to provide that.

4 Q. You've answered me about how you were supposed to ascertain

5 quality or give quality level of information, but you haven't answered my

6 question that I put to you, and that is: Were you ever briefed or told or

7 taught how you should determine if a conversation would be relevant and

8 worth taping? How was that done?

9 A. It was precisely the goal of the theoretical lecture to try and

10 explain to us what was important for us to decide on, whether to tape a

11 conversation or not. A large part of our training was dedicated to that

12 specifically.

13 MR. MEEK: You'll be glad to hear I'm about done, Your Honours.

14 Q. Mr. Witness, were you ever briefed on any individuals in your area

15 of coverage where you were located before you went, the name of any

16 individual you should be on the lookout for, for example? Key players

17 from the army of the Republika Srpska or your enemy at that time?

18 A. The focus was not on individuals. The focus was on the approach

19 to the professional tasks at hand.

20 Q. Could you explain that answer a little bit for me? You say you

21 didn't want to focus on individuals, but the focus was on the approach

22 professional tasks at hand. Could you explain that a little more for me?

23 I don't understand it.

24 A. Well, if we hear there is a General participating in a

25 conversation, then must be important because otherwise he wouldn't bother

1 to call. On the other hand, if we have a simple citizen calling, of

2 course we were probably not going to get as good information as we would

3 from a conversation, including a General.

4 Q. Thank you. And during your training you were not given any

5 instructions, or you weren't taught or shown or -- any tapes to listen to

6 of known voices of certain generals from the Republika Srpska army, were

7 you?

8 A. Precisely. It was a collective training for the army of B and H,

9 not for a specific corps or area.

10 Q. Then how much -- if you can remember, how many of the 30 soldiers

11 who trained with you ended up in the same location as you in 1994 and into

12 1995?

13 A. There were several courses, and out of the group that I was a part

14 of, I was the only person who was at that particular location.

15 Q. In your statement of 5 May 1999 to the Office of the Prosecutor,

16 you told the Prosecutor's office that you were able to recognise several

17 voices during the conversation -- conversations during that period. Do

18 you recall telling them that, sir?

19 A. Yes, I do.

20 Q. And did you list each one of the individuals whose voice you

21 believe you could recognise or did you leave any out?

22 A. I didn't list all of the people. I just mentioned some

23 characteristic ones. I couldn't recall all of the persons or the voices

24 of all the persons. At some point I could recognise the persons, but not

25 all of them.

1 Q. Back in 1999 with the OTP, you told them that, for example, you

2 could recognise General Simic, General Tolimir, and General Zivanovic,

3 those three only. Do you recall that, sir?

4 A. Yes, I do.

5 Q. Now, are there any more as you sit here today, understanding that

6 everything was fresher on your mind in 1999 than it is here in 2007? Are

7 there any other individuals who you would recognise their -- them by their

8 voice when you were in the field?

9 A. There were some individuals, but it's an operations part of the

10 job. These are people who are always doing that kind of thing.

11 Q. Sir, is it a fair statement that you were never -- during any of

12 this training, you never had any specific training on how to recognise

13 voices of the enemy that you might capture on tape. True?

14 A. There was just a little bit on the techniques of listening to

15 voices, of how you could recognise a voice because of the connection, but

16 nothing on individual voices. Our training had nothing to do with

17 individual voices but only the techniques on how to approach that job.

18 Q. And, sir, today, as you sit here today under oath, could you agree

19 with me that this 30 days of training that we've just discussed is wholly

20 insufficient and at yet for the job they sent you to do and that would, if

21 you had to do it all over now you would run a much more thorough and

22 longer course?

23 A. I would not agree with you, with your conclusion. For each job

24 that you do in your life, nothing is ever long enough or sufficient, in

25 principle. For the job is that we were doing we received certain

1 knowledge that we used and that we applied in order to do the job.

2 Q. Thank you, Witness.

3 MR. MEEK: I have no further questions.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you so much, Mr. Meek.

5 Who is next? Mr. Bourgon, who is appearing for Mr. Nikolic, will

6 be cross-examining you now.

7 MR. BOURGON: Thank you, Mr. President.

8 Cross-examination by Mr. Bourgon:

9 Q. Good afternoon, Witness.

10 A. Good afternoon, sir.

11 Q. Some of the questions I wanted to ask were already covered, so I

12 will try to keep it as short as possible, and my first question deals with

13 the -- the notebooks. And with respect to the notebooks, I would like you

14 to confirm that regarding the numbers that were assigned to these

15 notebooks, and regarding the dates that were assigned to the notebooks

16 what they would arrive to you and the date that was put at the end when a

17 book was completed, that you did not keep any written record of this

18 exchange of notebooks; is that correct?

19 A. It's correct that I didn't keep any record of it. The command

20 would take the notebooks, and that was the job of the command. It wasn't

21 my job.

22 Q. Now, when you testified in the Krstic case, you were asked some

23 questions regarding these notebooks. And just to summarise what you

24 said then, I'm referring to page 4335, and that was at line 37 exactly,

25 but --

1 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment. Mr. Meek, you left your microphone

2 on.

3 MR. MEEK: I'm sorry. I apologise.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: Sorry I had to interrupt you, Mr. Bourgon.

5 MR. BOURGON: No problem, Mr. President.

6 Q. I'll take this again, Witness. When you testified in the Krstic

7 case, that was from your testimony at page 4335 to page 4337, at that time

8 the Prosecution requested from you a confirmation that there was a date on

9 every book that you received; is that correct?

10 A. I cannot recall such a request.

11 Q. Then without referring to the request itself, Witness, I would

12 just like to know, can you confirm today that when you received a book

13 from headquarters it should have had a date to begin this book. Is that

14 correct?

15 A. That's how it should have been.

16 Q. But you can agree with me today that it wasn't always the case?

17 A. I agree with you, yes.

18 Q. And when the book was completed, that is when the final

19 conversation went to the end of the last page of the book, then there

20 should have been a date at the end to say that this book was completed,

21 but also this did not always take place; is that correct?

22 A. That is correct.

23 Q. Now, if somebody wants to find out the exact date of a particular

24 intercept, this can only be done by using the first date and the last date

25 of one of those notebooks. Would that be correct?

1 A. That is not correct.

2 Q. Can you explain why this is not correct?

3 A. All the conversations or the intercepts were transferred to the

4 computer and sent to the command with the Paket radio connection, and all

5 the information was also contained in the notebook.

6 Q. Maybe, Witness, my question was not clear enough. If I look at

7 the notebook only and I want to identify the date of a particular

8 intercept, it is necessary for me to look at the first date and the last

9 date in order to be able to do that. That's the only way it can be done,

10 using the notebook; is that correct?

11 A. Yes. There is a problem if just the notebook is used.

12 Q. Thank you, Witness. I'll move on to another topic. It was --

13 reference was made earlier to your statement given to the Office of the

14 Prosecution on the 5th of May, 1999. I would just like you to refer to

15 part of this statement where you said, and I quote: "All conversations

16 that were written down in the books were previously taped," and then you

17 say, "and written down in the books from listening to those tapes multiple

18 times."

19 I would simply like to obtain a confirmation from you that it was

20 always necessary to listen to a conversation many times before you could

21 get a proper written version in your notebook.

22 A. If there was a problem generally with an intercept or a

23 conversation, then we would listen to it over and over. If there was no

24 problem with the intercept, then it would be very quickly noted down in

25 the notebook.

1 Q. But what I get from your statement is that every time you had an

2 intercept, it was necessary to listen many times to the tape because it's

3 a difficult exercise. I'm simply asking whether you agree with me that it

4 is indeed a difficult exercise in order to transcribe a conversation on

5 one of those tapes.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: If you limit yourself to this new, different

7 question, yes. Otherwise, he's already answered you.

8 MR. BOURGON: I keep this exact question, Mr. President.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, repeat it, please, but stick to it, because the

10 other question, the previous question, which -- with which you introduced

11 your second question had already been answered by him.

12 MR. BOURGON: Will do, Mr. President.

13 Q. Witness, I'll say the question over again so that it's very clear.

14 I'm simply asking, and I will read the exact question so that there is no

15 mistake, and the question was whether you agree with me that it is indeed

16 a difficult exercise in order to transcribe a conversation on one of those

17 tapes.

18 A. Sometimes it was easier. Sometimes it was the most -- more

19 difficult part of the work. It's a very serious kind of work. It's not

20 easy.

21 Q. I will just refer you to an answer that you gave to Defence

22 counsel, and that was during your testimony in the Blagojevic case, and I

23 will quote here from the transcript at page 4078. That was in the

24 Blagojevic case. The question was: "Would you hear a conversation more

25 than one time if necessary before writing it down?"

1 Your answer then was the following: "We faced a number of

2 different situations depending on the quality of reception, depending on

3 the pronunciation of the participants involved. Sometimes it was possible

4 to transcribe a conversation after listening to it once or twice, but

5 sometimes this took hours, and we needed help from our colleagues in order

6 to be able to understand clearly what the participants were saying."

7 Would you still agree with this answer that you gave then? Do you

8 agree with this answer today?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Now, you -- in response to a question by my colleague from the

11 Prosecution, I believe you said that once a conversation was noted down in

12 a notebook and given to a typist, you had no involvement whatsoever with

13 that conversation; is that correct?

14 A. That was generally that way, yes.

15 Q. Now, moving on from the fact that this was generally the way, I

16 would like you to confirm that even though you were the shift

17 supervisors -- supervisor, sorry, you did not supervise nor review the

18 conversations that were transcribed by the other people in your section?

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Is there anything wrong? I heard -- okay. All

20 right.

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] For the most part I didn't do that

22 part of the work.

23 MR. BOURGON:

24 Q. Now, again you say "for the most part," which appears to be

25 different from what I read from your previous testimony. So did you

1 sometimes do it, or did you never do it?

2 A. I say "for the most part" because sometimes in certain

3 circumstances I did encounter some documents. There was probably some

4 reason for that. But in principle it was not something that I did.

5 Q. And would you recall any of these documents that you did have

6 to supervision or had the opportunity to supervise, and why this took

7 place?

8 A. I cannot recall the kind of documents that I was going to

9 supervise, but we generally helped each other in situations where a

10 conversation couldn't be heard very well. We would be helping each other

11 in order to transcribe it. That was the point of doing it.

12 Q. Now, I take it from your last answer, Witness, that you say that

13 you would obtain the help of others in order to clarify a particular

14 conversation, and that's exactly the point I'm trying to get at.

15 When you did this kind of exercise seeking the help of your -- the

16 help of people working in your section, would I be right in saying that

17 the end result is you finally agreed on what is the content of the

18 conversation by discussing with the others?

19 A. We're not going about it in the proper way. We were helping each

20 other regarding understanding the pronunciation of certain sections of the

21 conversation, not the content of the conversation itself.

22 Q. Now, I have to go back on this, Witness, because I'm not sure this

23 is very clear, because this would agree us to understand that the person

24 could understand the conversation but needed help with the pronunciation.

25 Now, my understanding is that he could not understand what was being said,

1 and he sought the help of other colleagues around him to try and find out

2 what the conversation said. Is that the real version?

3 A. Yes, I can agree with you there. That is correct.

4 Q. Now, if I look at a notebook, there's no way for me to tell

5 whether a conversation falls in of category of I needed to listen only

6 once or twice, or I needed to listen to the conversation for hours. I

7 cannot tell by looking at the notebook, can I?

8 A. That is correct.

9 Q. Now, one last question on the difficulties that were encountered,

10 and again I will quote from your testimony in the -- this time in the

11 Krstic case, and that is on page 4328, and that is from lines 10 to 16.

12 The question was the following: "If you were unable to properly hear a

13 conversation, what would you do?" This time your answer was the

14 following: "There were many difficult situations. That is to say where

15 we could hear the conversation but that there was a lot of interference

16 and it was partly audible. But where the conversation was clear, the

17 request was that anything we take down in written form should comply with

18 the original. So if everything was clear, we would write it down. If it

19 was inaudible or not clear, we would put three dots, and we did not write

20 anything because we were not able to understand it sufficiently."

21 My question to you in respect of this paragraph is that the

22 methodology used about the three dots, what does that represent as far as

23 you are concerned, those three dots, in the notebooks and the

24 conversations that you took down?

25 A. I cannot remember precisely how it went, but I assume -- I can

1 just assume that there were pauses in the conversation. Maybe there were

2 some things missing. But that's all. I really cannot remember more. It

3 was a long time ago.

4 Q. Thank you, Witness. I appreciate your answer, because I

5 remember that of course this is a long time ago. But can you just

6 clarify whether three dots could in certain circumstances mean three

7 worth, in other circumstances a pause, in other circumstances a longer

8 blank in the conversation that you could not hear? Would that be a

9 fair statement?

10 A. It could have different meaning, that there was a pause or that

11 there was a word missing. I really couldn't say definitely.

12 Q. And would you agree with me, sir, that there was no real set

13 standard as to what those three dots meant from one operator to the

14 next?

15 A. I cannot agree with you that there was no standard. "Standard" is

16 a broad term, but in this case there were rules which we were all

17 acquainted with when we came to the listening station.

18 Q. Let me then make my question a bit more clear to help you out

19 simply by saying that three dots for you in a certain intercept might not

20 mean the same thing as three dots for another interceptor for another

21 intercept. Would that be a fair statement?

22 A. Sincerely speaking I cannot remember what that exactly signified.

23 We were all informed about the rules, but at the moment I cannot really

24 remember what the significance of the three dots was.

25 Q. Thank you, Witness. I appreciate your answer, and I appreciate

1 the effort to go back all these years.

2 I have one last question for you and that reference to

3 something -- one of your answers when you testified in the Blagojevic

4 case, and that was at page 4121, at lines 18 to 25. And the question this

5 time came from a Defence counsel, and in your answer concerning one of

6 your own intercepts, your answer was: "If this was faithfully

7 transcribed, it means that that person was mixing two different kinds of

8 dialect."

9 But the part I want to quote from your answer is the following;

10 the Defence counsel went on to say: "If I understand you properly, you

11 say if this has been faithfully transcribed, if that is so, can I conclude

12 that perhaps you did not," because this was your handwriting, "did not

13 faithfully transcribe what you heard?"

14 Now, your answer to this was the following: "There is always the

15 possibility that a man makes various mistakes. Even if the same

16 conversation is transcribed twice, these mistakes can be made. People are

17 not robots. We only have identical copies made by computers. A person, a

18 human being, can make a mistake."

19 Would you still agree with this kind of answer today, sir?

20 A. That's how it is. That's the truth.

21 Q. And one last question, Witness. All the time you spent doing

22 those intercepts in that section, being the shift supervisor you probably

23 were in a better position than the others even to see that, but my

24 question is very simple. Were those stressful times, to do this job in a

25 wartime scenario?

1 A. I don't know what you mean when you say "better position." As the

2 shift supervisor, I just actually had more to do than just the regular

3 soldiers, and I also was required to take care of the soldiers a little

4 bit.

5 Q. Maybe I will make my question more clear. For you personally, the

6 job, the position that you held doing those intercepts, was that a

7 stressful job in stressful conditions because it was the war?

8 A. It was an exceptionally difficult job, and if you wish, it was

9 stressful. It was a burden, a lot of work. All of these things were

10 mixed up.

11 Q. Thank you very much, sir. I have no further questions.

12 MR. BOURGON: Thank you, Mr. President.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Mr. Bourgon.

14 Mr. Stojanovic.

15 Cross-examination by Mr. Stojanovic:

16 Q. [Interpretation] Good afternoon, sir.

17 A. Good afternoon, Mr. Stojanovic.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Allow a pause between question and answer so that

19 the interpreters can catch up with you, please. Thank you.

20 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. I'm going to put just some questions to you. I know we're tired

22 and this has been going on for a while now.

23 Your statement to the Tribunal investigators was given on the 5th

24 of May, 1999.

25 A. Yes, that is correct.

1 Q. Could you please tell us other than the Tribunal representatives

2 who was present when you were providing your statement?

3 A. I cannot remember exactly all of the persons but I was summoned by

4 (redacted) and he was there for a while or the entire time. I cannot

5 recall, but he was present in any case.

6 Q. Your Honours, can we move into private session for a moment

7 because of the question that I'm about to put?

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Certainly.

9 Let's go into private session for a while, please.

10 [Private session]

11 (redacted)

12 (redacted)

13 (redacted)

14 (redacted)

15 (redacted)

16 (redacted)

17 (redacted)

18 (redacted)

19 (redacted)

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 (redacted)

23 (redacted)

24 (redacted)

25 (redacted)

1 (redacted)

2 (redacted)

3 (redacted)

4 (redacted)

5 (redacted)

6 (redacted)

7 (redacted)

8 (redacted)

9 (redacted)

10 (redacted)

11 [Open session]

12 JUDGE AGIUS: We will are in open session, Mr. Stojanovic and

13 Witness.

14 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. When providing this interview, you were no longer a member of the

16 army of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

17 A. That is correct.

18 Q. What was the role or the task of the person whose name we heard a

19 moment ago at the time you provided your interview, your statement?

20 A. In all honesty, I don't know what his role was there.

21 Q. Can you recall whether during you are giving of the statement he

22 made certain suggestions or had interventions or additions to some of your

23 answers?

24 A. I cannot recall a single such situation.

25 Q. When you were giving this statement, was he still an active member

1 of the army and a member of the 2nd Corps of the army of B and H?

2 A. I think so. I know he was still in active service, but I don't

3 know which unit he belonged to.

4 Q. Does the name Stefanie Frease mean anything to you? She was a

5 representative of the Tribunal at the time you provided the statement.

6 A. I recall that name.

7 Q. Was she present when you gave the statement, when you were

8 interviewed?

9 A. I think so. I don't know whether she was there throughout,

10 though.

11 Q. Thank you. In your today's testimony during the

12 examination-in-chief, you mentioned a person who belonged to your unit,

13 and you said this person was a radio man. Without mentioning his name,

14 can you tell me whether you provided any such answers to the Prosecutor's

15 questions when you were asked what that particular person's role or task

16 was?

17 A. When we are talking about radio men, their job was to transfer the

18 intercepts into the computer and to use the so-called packet communication

19 links to send them off to the command.

20 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, by your leave may we

21 move into private session for a moment since we need to mention another

22 person's name, and this person may appear as a protected Witness?

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Certainly, Mr. Stojanovic, let's move to private

24 session, please.

25 [Private session]

1 (redacted)

2 (redacted)

3 (redacted)

4 (redacted)

5 (redacted)

6 (redacted)

7 (redacted)

8 (redacted)

9 (redacted)

10 (redacted)

11 (redacted)

12 [Open session]

13 JUDGE AGIUS: We are in open session now.

14 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. My question is this: This member of your unit, was he in the

16 position to listen in to conversations, to note them down into the

17 notebook, or was his job to transfer the transcribed conversations via

18 Paket communication via the superior command?

19 A. Perhaps on occasion he would listen in, but the gist of his role

20 was to use the Paket communication to type everything into the computer

21 and then transfer the data.

22 Q. Thank you. I wanted to ask you something which is unclear to me.

23 There is a difference between the text sent to the command, the typed-out

24 version, as we refer to it, and the handwritten version noted into the

25 notebook by yourself. You said today that you believe the more authentic

1 one is the notebook version; is that correct?

2 A. Yes, it is.

3 Q. You concluded that based on the fact that what was introduced into

4 the notebook was what a given person heard when listening to a specific

5 tape. Is that so?

6 A. Yes, it is.

7 Q. In your view, which would be the official version sent to your

8 unit's superior command, the typed one or the handwritten one in the

9 notebook?

10 A. The official version for the command was probably the one which

11 arrived via the computer. They probably never saw my notes.

12 Q. You will agree with me therefore that there was a possibility of

13 an example used today by the Prosecutor, that the official version be less

14 reliable than the version contained in your notebook; is that correct?

15 A. Yes, there is such a possibility. We cannot exclude that.

16 Q. Did -- at a certain point your superior command in those few days,

17 not a year later but in those days, did the superior command have the

18 opportunity to see the notes from the notebooks?

19 A. I cannot tell you what the command did, but as for the notebooks,

20 once completed and handed over to the next shift would go to the captain

21 and taken to the command. As for who may have later referred to them, I

22 don't know.

23 Q. Thank you. And to conclude, I wanted to ask you this: At the

24 location we termed the northern location so as not to mention the name, in

25 addition to your unit there was some state security units as well; is that

1 correct?

2 A. Yes. There was a small crew.

3 Q. The antenna systems at the location where you were, were they the

4 same? Were they used for the surveillance of conversations by your unit

5 as well as by the State Security Service? And I mean only the antenna

6 systems.

7 A. I don't know. We did our job pursuant to our orders. The State

8 Security Service pursued their own procedures, and I have no information

9 as to what conversations they surveilled or intercepted.

10 Q. Perhaps I was unclear. I wanted to know this: Did both the army

11 and the police use the same antenna system? As for who listened to what

12 and which devices were used, I want to exclude that from my question. I'm

13 only interested in the antennae. Did you use the same antenna systems?

14 A. I know that the service brought their own pillar and antenna, and

15 we had nothing to do with it.

16 Q. Did you know that there were problems between your unit and the

17 State Security Service? There was an investigation against your platoon

18 commander specifically regarding these problems in the second half of

19 1995?

20 A. I don't recall any investigation details, but at first the service

21 began working with us, and then later on they separated and set up their

22 own system.

23 Q. Do you know anything about the issue of using the antenna system

24 and the investigation conducted against your platoon commander? Yes or

25 no.

1 A. I don't recall that particular detail.

2 Q. On two occasions today you said you could by that point recognise

3 certain features of people's voices and recognise the given individuals.

4 Do you remember saying that?

5 A. Yes, that is so.

6 Q. Were you given any instruction as to how to keep register on the

7 characteristics, on the features of voices of individuals? Did you keep

8 any personal files, any date on the specific nature of how they speak, the

9 words they use when conversing with people? Did you have any such files

10 there?

11 A. As far as I know, no one told us to do any such thing.

12 Q. You specifically as a section or squad leader, you were never

13 given such an instruction in?

14 A. No, never.

15 Q. And you did not keep any sort of files about those sort of

16 people?

17 A. We kept no files. Data and analysis was not one of our tasks.

18 Q. I will conclude with this question, and I will try to be as

19 graphic as possible, because we've been in the situation to hear a number

20 of people of your profile. You hear a conversation and the participants

21 introduce themselves and someone at the switchboard says "Dragan is on the

22 line," and then you would have the conversation. "Ljubo, how are you

23 doing." "I'm fine." "How's your wife?" "She's okay." "How are you?"

24 "I'm fine." And then they go on.

25 Will you tell me something about the use of units, for example?

1 In such a situation, were you instructed to write down only what you

2 deemed important and specific for that conversation, or were you requested

3 to note down the entire conversation including the greetings and

4 formalities, introductions?

5 A. As a rule, the whole conversation should be contained. However,

6 you offered a simplified version. If there is an interesting

7 conversation, we turn on the tape recorder and it records everything.

8 Q. Once that is taped and noted down into the notebook, do you make

9 notes of the whole conversation or do you screen it and select the parts

10 to be noted down?

11 A. As a rule, one should write down everything that was said. That's

12 the rule. And if you have sufficient time on your hands, that is the best

13 way to do it.

14 Q. Did you stand by that rule?

15 A. For the most cases I stuck to it, although there were certain

16 deviations, so to say.

17 Q. Thank you for your assistance. I have no more questions?

18 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, Mr. Stojanovic.

19 Madam Fauveau will be cross-examining you now.

20 [Trial Chamber confers]

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Madam Fauveau, go ahead, and we'll take a

22 break towards quarter to 6.00. Thank you.

23 Cross-examination by Ms. Fauveau:

24 Q. [Interpretation] Sir, today you mentioned that it was absolutely

25 necessary to get training for your type of work. I would like to remind

1 you what you said in the Blagojevic case on the 7th of November, 2003 on

2 page 4115. In that case you said for that type of job people got their

3 training for 15 to 20 years in order to become specialists. Are you --

4 today would you say the same thing?

5 MR. McCLOSKEY: Objection, Your Honour. That's a pretty rough

6 paraphrase, to ask him that question, and it's difficult to even figure

7 out what she's asking.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: In order to answer you that we need to go to chapter

9 and verse. Blagojevic, what -- which page, Madam Fauveau, please.

10 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] It's page 4115. 7th of November,

11 2003, lines 19 through 21.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. I suggest that someone reads it out.

13 You can read it out yourself, Madam Fauveau, to the witness.

14 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]

15 Q. Sir, at the time you've said, and I quote: "[In English] During

16 the month of training my knowledge of equipment was very basic. Usually

17 people are trained for 15 or 20 years to specialise in operating this

18 equipment. We didn't have the time, and we did the best we could."

19 JUDGE AGIUS: And reading -- and finish that answer in its

20 entirety, please.

21 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]

22 Q. "We made the best of it, whatever we could learn during the

23 course, and we tried to apply the knowledge acquired during our training.

24 Now how qualified or professional our work was, I think we need more time

25 to tell.

1 "I would" -- [Interpretation] Mr. President, I don't have the next

2 page.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: I have it. "I would have been very happy if I had

4 had 20 years of military education behind me when I started performing

5 these tasks. That's all I can tell you."

6 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

7 Q. Sir, today would you confirm this statement? Would you say the

8 same thing today?

9 A. I think for any job and any person one needs the maximum of

10 information and education, and the era that is before us requires

11 permanent education of anyone. It means that one needs a lot of time for

12 any type of work, although I cannot say that the job we did was not done

13 well. It was.

14 Q. Is it exact to say that the unit in which you were in 1995 did not

15 have enough quality equipment?

16 A. That is correct.

17 Q. And can we say, therefore, that the equipment was often broken?

18 A. I don't think we understand each other. If we are talking about

19 the functioning of equipment, I claim that our radio devices were on all

20 the time and that there were no interruptions.

21 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Could the witness be shown Exhibit

22 5D122. And I would like to mention that it's a confidential exhibit which

23 contains the signature of the witness.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: That will not be broadcast. And in any case,

25 please, Madam Registrar, remind us all to make sure it's under seal, put

1 under seal later on.

2 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Could the witness be shown the

3 second page, please.

4 MR. McCLOSKEY: Just -- just to comment. Perhaps it's a

5 translation issue, but I don't think it has the signature of the witness.

6 It has the name. It may have just been a translation issue, but it can be

7 an important issue.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you for pointing that out. It is evident from

9 the document that we are seeing in any case. So let's go to the question,

10 Madam Fauveau.

11 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I made a mistake, and

12 in fact I wanted to say that this it exhibit contains the name of the

13 witness.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you for that clarification, and let's

15 proceed with the question.

16 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]

17 Q. Witness, this is a report that you apparently have written because

18 your name is stated on this report. Could you please look at page 5 of

19 this document. We see very clearly that on this -- page 5, we see the

20 following: "[In English] Discussing in our work the following was said:

21 The equipment we're using is old making for frequent breakdowns, and it is

22 difficult to get spare parts for some equipment under repair."

23 [Interpretation] To refresh your memory, it would be good if the

24 witness could be shown page 1.

25 THE INTERPRETER: No microphone, Mr. President.

1 Could Ms. Fauveau repeat her question in the microphone, please.

2 Microphone, please.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Your microphone is switched off apparently,

4 Ms. Fauveau.

5 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Thank you.

6 Q. At the very beginning of this document, you can see that this is a

7 document dated the 21st of February, and that in fact it is a document

8 which talks about a certain person that came to visit belonging to the 2nd

9 Corps, and he was in the zone in which your unit was deployed.

10 Now, I would like to ask you, firstly, do you recall that this

11 particular person whose name appears on this document, do you recall if he

12 came to visit your unit in fact?

13 A. I recognise the situation you're referring to, and I remember the

14 gentleman. I don't remember all the details, though, but I remember him

15 being there.

16 Q. Do you recall drafting this report yourself?

17 A. I cannot recall that. I know there were some questions that I

18 needed to respond to concerning his visit, Mr. Tasic's visit.

19 Q. What I just read to you under 5 -- under number 5 on the second

20 page, is this an answer that you gave following a question that the

21 gentleman whose name you mentioned asked you?

22 A. I think our superior requested that we inform him about the

23 situation. I don't remember any details, but requests were made

24 constantly, particularly at the time when he took over the unit.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Whenever it's convenient for you, Madam Fauveau,

1 please.

2 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I have maybe one or

3 two questions on this topic.

4 Q. Sir, can we therefore say that you would not have lied to your

5 superior commander and that what is described in this report reflects the

6 truth?

7 A. In principle I never lied to my superior. I'm not a person who

8 would lie, but I cannot recall any details pertaining to this situation.

9 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Mr. President, maybe this is the

10 right time for the break then.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Because we had a redaction we need 30

12 minutes.

13 How much more time do you require, Madam Fauveau?

14 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] About 30 minutes, Mr. President,

15 maximum.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: And Mr. Haynes, where do we stand with you?

17 MR. HAYNES: Touch and go, but should just finish this evening.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Thank you.

19 So 30 minutes.

20 --- Recess taken at 5.45 p.m.

21 --- On resuming at 6.14 p.m.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Madam Fauveau.

23 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

24 Q. Sir, allow me now to ask you a few questions on the tapes that you

25 were using to tape the conversations. Is it exact to say that you were

1 using those tapes over again once you finished a conversation?

2 A. There were different periods, different situations, but generally

3 we did use the same tapes.

4 Q. Is it exact to say that you were not sending the tapes

5 systematically to your superior?

6 A. I said that there were different periods. In one period we were

7 sending them there, but then in another we were not.

8 Q. Is it exact to say that in July of 1995 you did not send tapes to

9 you superior command?

10 A. Yes, I think that that was the period when we were not sending

11 them.

12 Q. When you were using the tapes, would you first erase the

13 conversations that were taped or would you tape a new conversation on top

14 of the conversation that was already taped on that tape?

15 A. I cannot remember exactly which technique was applied. I really

16 cannot remember.

17 Q. Is it exact to say that your unit had to listen to conversations

18 but also to scrabble them, that they had those two duties?

19 A. Our job was to listen to the conversations, but this term,

20 "decoding," I don't know what it means.

21 Q. Allow me to read to you exactly what you said in Blagojevic case

22 on page 4074 on the 6th of November between lines 9 through to 14. In that

23 case you state and I quote: "[In English] Basically the unit had two

24 objectives. The only objective of the unit was to protect it the

25 population and the military. This was done by electronic surveillance

1 which in this case came down to listening in on conversation being

2 transmitted to enemy frequencies, and interfering with the enemy's

3 communication which was less often the case."

4 [Interpretation] Is it exact to say that you were interfering in

5 the conversations, that you were perturbing or disturbing the

6 conversations of the enemy?

7 A. I have to say that there were two sections. I was in the

8 listening sections, and I had my colleagues who were -- whose task it was

9 to interfere during certain conversations.

10 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Could the witness be shown Exhibit

11 2D48, please. This should be a confidential exhibit because it contains

12 the name of the witness.

13 Could the witness be shown page 3, please.

14 Q. Under number 5 you can see how many people worked for your unit,

15 and 5.02 you can see the name of one person that was described as Ometaci,

16 which means the scrambler or the jammer. Did your section dispose of such

17 a person?

18 A. My section did not, but the command sometimes assigned different

19 people to our facility.

20 Q. And for the person under number 5.03, was that the person that was

21 in charge of sending reports to your command?

22 A. Yes. The communications person under 5.03 was the person who did

23 that work, yes.

24 Q. Now, that person that was in charge of communications, was that

25 person a member of your unit?

1 A. Yes. That was our radio man.

2 Q. And that person, was he subordinated to the same commander as

3 yourself?

4 A. Yes. I think that he was, yes.

5 Q. Do you know the person under number 5.02, the scrambler, do you

6 know who -- under whom he was, or he was subordinated to whom?

7 A. I can assume that he was in the same command, but -- I think that

8 he was in the same command, but I don't know exactly.

9 Q. Witness, do you know if your command insisted mainly on the

10 content of the conversations or was the number [as interpreted] of

11 participants as important, equally important?

12 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] I'm sorry, there's a mistake in the

13 transcript.

14 Q. It's name, the name of the participants, and not the number of

15 participants.

16 A. Everything is important in a conversation. Information is

17 important as well as the participants. Again, I'm saying something that

18 may not be my job, but let me say this: Everything is important.

19 Q. Can you tell us how many notes were used at the same time,

20 those -- how many booklets were you using at one time?

21 A. I cannot tell you the correct or the exact number of notebooks,

22 but the principle was to use one notebook per equipment, but sometimes it

23 would happen that there were a few notebooks that were being circulated at

24 the same time.

25 Q. When you wanted a conversation that you transcribed in the

1 notebook be transcribed in the computer, would you bring that notebook to

2 the person who was in charge of drafting it on a computer? Would you

3 bring it to that person, in that person's room where the person was

4 working?

5 A. That's how it was for the most part.

6 Q. And can you tell us where was that person physically? Was that

7 person in another room, and where was that room with respect to the room

8 where the people who were listening to conversations were?

9 A. We had several rooms. The communications person's room was next

10 to the listening room.

11 Q. Was there a door, a direct door between the room where you were

12 for intercepting conversations and the room in which this person was?

13 A. All the rooms were entered from the corridor, so the entrance to

14 the room where the communications person was from the corridor.

15 Q. Could any person enter the room where the person was in charge of

16 communications?

17 A. As a rule the communication person should have been alone, but

18 sometimes colleagues would go in.

19 Q. And in your team, the team of which you were the chief, how many

20 persons were in charge of communications?

21 A. It was always one person for our unit.

22 Q. Sir, if I understood the system, sometimes the conversations which

23 were urgent should be immediately sent. If there was only one person, how

24 could this person work 24 hours out of 24?

25 A. One person worked. How they worked for 24 hours, well, they work

1 that time. There weren't information -- there wasn't information

2 constantly throughout the 24 hours. When they worked, they would sit at

3 the computer and they would work.

4 Q. What I'd like to know, was it possible for an interceptor

5 exceptionally to enter information into the computer and send them?

6 I would like to ask you whether exceptionally --

7 A. I didn't hear the interpretation.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: You need to repeat the question because there was a

9 problem with the interpreters.

10 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]

11 Q. I would like to ask you whether exceptionally an interceptor could

12 replace the person charge of communications and enter the data into the

13 computer and send a report?

14 A. I don't remember. There were situations when a communications

15 person replaced an interceptor, but I don't remember anything the other

16 way round.

17 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] I would like now to have 2D45 shown

18 to the witness. Exhibit 2D45. Could you show the lower part of the

19 document, please.

20 Q. Sir, I understood you said that you rarely had had an opportunity

21 to see the report before it was sent, but when a report had your name on

22 it, did you have an opportunity to read it?

23 A. I did not read that.

24 Q. Have you ever had the opportunity of seeing a report?

25 A. I don't remember any occasion like that.

1 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Could the witness be shown the top

2 of the document.

3 Q. Did you have the opportunity sometimes to see the seal, the

4 rectangular seal which is in the angle of the document?

5 A. No, I didn't have the opportunity to see that stamp, no.

6 Q. And do you know to whom the reports like this one were sent?

7 A. I don't know what happened after the radio person. I would say

8 that that would be the end of my report.

9 Q. In the Blagojevic case, on the 6th November, page 4079, you said

10 that you were not in charge of analysing the conversations, and other

11 people were in charge of analysing the conversations or intercepts. Could

12 you say who was in charge of analysing the intercepts?

13 A. What I know, what I heard, is that there was a centre at the corps

14 command that used to do that.

15 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Could the witness be shown Exhibit

16 2D47.

17 Q. Sir, just after the goods which are in this room or the equipment

18 which is in this room, there is a sentence which says that on the basis of

19 data declared in the report it was possible to evaluate the size of a

20 unit. Do you agree that this sentence is already a form of analysis?

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Move to the next question, Madam Fauveau, please.

22 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]

23 Q. Sir, you said a while ago that you were not aware of the

24 intercepts done by the state security. On this exhibit, you can see the

25 words "CSB SDB Tuzla." Could you explain what these words mean in this

1 report sent by your unit?

2 A. From what I know, these are abbreviations for the public security

3 centre and the State Security Service, if what I know is correct.

4 Q. Would it be fair to say that this particular conversation was

5 transcribed from the service of -- security of the state services?

6 A. I think that that is so. I assume that it's so, but I don't

7 remember whether it was precisely that or not.

8 Q. When you spoke to the Prosecution office on the 19th of May, 1999,

9 for the second time, you said that the 21st and 25th divisions were very

10 active in monitoring conversations. Were the 25th and 21st units located

11 in the same locality as your unit?

12 A. As far as I know, they were not at the same positions. The 25th

13 Division listening unit was in a completely different location.

14 Q. And the 21st?

15 A. The same. But when the combat activity stopped, then those two

16 listening units fused into a joint section, but that was towards the

17 end.

18 Q. I still have a last question to ask.

19 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Could the witness be shown again

20 2D48, Exhibit 2D48. Could the witness be shown the third page.

21 Q. Sir, under number 6 there are requests, requests for equipment

22 which you had sent to your command?

23 A. Yes, I see the requests.

24 Q. And if you look at those requests, you will see at a given moment

25 you ask "UNPROFOR tyres." Could you explain what that means?

1 A. It says here, "raw rubber from UNPROFOR." There is a difference

2 between tyres and raw rubber.

3 Q. Does this rubber, raw rubber, you got it from UNPROFOR?

4 A. I don't know if there was any cooperation with UNPROFOR in

5 relation to any kind of equipment.

6 Q. Do you remember why you wrote "raw rubber of UNPROFOR," why you

7 wrote that?

8 A. I don't recall writing or drafting the report, and I certainly

9 don't recall the particulars.

10 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I have no other

11 questions to ask.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you so much, Madam Fauveau.

13 Mr. Haynes for Pandurevic. I skipped you --

14 MR. JOSSE: You were right to, Your Honour.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.

16 MR. HAYNES: Your Honour, let's see if we can do this in 20

17 minutes.

18 Cross-examination by Mr. Haynes:

19 Q. As I understand the situation, whether any particular conversation

20 was relevant was a matter which was left entirely up to the individual

21 operator; is that correct?

22 A. That is correct.

23 Q. And that each of you had two or three pieces of machinery to

24 monitor, each of which monitored a number of different radio channels. Is

25 that also correct?

1 A. We had different situations. The tendency was one piece of

2 equipment per soldier, but if we didn't have enough people, then more

3 people would -- one person would cover more workstations.

4 Q. So the first stage of the process was, the operator had to decide

5 which piece of equipment to listen to if he had more than one?

6 A. If a person was monitoring several workstations, then they would

7 be listening to all of the equipment there. There would be no

8 difference.

9 Q. And having decided what was relevant to listen to, he then had to

10 decide what was relevant to record?

11 A. What was recorded -- well, if a person could not monitor a

12 conversation, it would be taped and then listened to later. If he decided

13 that something was interesting or potentially interesting, he would turn

14 on the tape recorder, which would then be listening instead of him,

15 practically.

16 Q. And whose decision was it to transcribe or, alternatively,

17 summarise a conversation?

18 A. The person who listened to the conversation would decide.

19 Q. And were you given any instruction on that as to whether a

20 conversation should be fully transcribed or merely summarised?

21 A. There were some conversations or discussions on this topic, but

22 generally speaking it was up to the person, the interceptor, to see which

23 conversation would need to be transcribed and which would not.

24 Q. Do you ever recall being discouraged from transcribing a

25 conversation? In other words, be told not to do it?

1 A. I think that we didn't have any influences. The decisions were

2 ours. Individual decisions, or if we worked together in the shift then

3 sometimes we would discuss it together, but there were no elements of

4 influence in this at all.

5 Q. Thank you. I'll move on. Now, when particularly interesting or

6 urgent information was received by you, what was the procedure for most

7 quickly delivering it to your command?

8 A. In particularly urgent situations we would use a wire connector

9 even an open telephone, but the best option would be to mark the

10 conversation as urgent and send it off like that.

11 Q. Thank you. Now, I want to ask you about Semso Muminovic. He was

12 one of your commanders, wasn't he?

13 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment. Do we redact this or --

14 MR. HAYNES: I'm confident that's a name that's appeared openly

15 several times already in these proceedings.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. So let's proceed then.

17 MR. HAYNES:

18 Q. Do you want me to repeat the question, Witness? Semso Muminovic

19 was one of your commanders, wasn't he?

20 A. It is correct.

21 MR. HAYNES: For just safety's sake, I will go into private

22 session for this question.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's go into private session, please.

24 [Private session]

25 (redacted)

1 (redacted)

2 (redacted)

3 (redacted)

4 (redacted)

5 (redacted)

6 [Open session]

7 MR. HAYNES: Would have you have been able to recognise his

8 voice?

9 A. I don't think so. I don't think so. We never intercepted his

10 conversations.

11 Q. Well, that's what I was about to ask you. I was going to ask you

12 whether you ever heard him or someone you believed to be him whilst you

13 were monitoring radio traffic.

14 A. I don't think so. I don't remember hearing his voice ever.

15 Q. I can show you the document if you -- if you wish, but on the 15th

16 of May of 1999 you spoke to a lady called Stefanie Frease, didn't you?

17 I'm sorry, 16th of May.

18 A. I don't know on what date we spoke, but there was a conversation

19 with her back in 1999.

20 Q. This was the occasion upon which she showed you some of the

21 notebooks that you'd used in recording conversations. Do you recall that

22 occasion?

23 A. Yes, it was so.

24 Q. And you were asked then whether you -- there were any particular

25 conversations you remembered. And these are her notes. I'll make that

1 clear. You she said you concerned a conversation about opening a

2 corridor. "It was a call made one of our commanders, Semso Muminovic."

3 Do you remember saying that to her?

4 A. I forwarded that information, and I discussed it.

5 Q. Well, what I want to consider is in the light of that and

6 remembering that conversation, do you think now you actually did hear

7 Semso Muminovic when you were monitoring conversations?

8 A. I don't think I heard the voice. I don't have the document before

9 me, but that information came from the enemy. It didn't come from our

10 side, from our devices.

11 Q. Thank you very much. Now, your particular responsibility during

12 the period with which we were concerned was monitoring the movement of

13 refugees who'd left Srebrenica, wasn't it?

14 A. Our surveillance area was Podrinje, but I always thought it

15 important for all of us to follow the movement of those people and to see

16 that they get out safely.

17 Q. And were you aware through any of your briefings or intelligence

18 that you received while you were doing your job at that time whether Semso

19 Muminovic had the same concerns as you?

20 A. I forwarded the information I picked up on the enemy lines. As

21 for what was happening objectively, I don't know.

22 Q. Now, I'm going to move on to another topic. In monitoring the

23 channels that you did, did you notice any particular patterns of usage by

24 the enemy?

25 A. I don't understand the question.

1 Q. How frequently did certain enemy units change channel, a lot or

2 not very frequently?

3 A. I think it happened seldom. Some units stayed on their respective

4 channels for quite a while.

5 Q. I know it's going back a long time, but in particular do you

6 remember the usage of channel 3? Was that something that was easy to

7 monitor?

8 A. I cannot recall that specifically, but I don't think that that

9 particular channel presented much difficulty for tapping.

10 Q. Now, going back to what you said to Stefanie Frease on the 16th of

11 May of 1999, you remember conversations about the opening of a corridor,

12 don't you?

13 A. That is correct. I remember it nowadays as well. This

14 conversation was on the enemy communication lines, and there was a mention

15 of this information concerning a corridor.

16 Q. Are you talking now about a conversation or more than one

17 conversation over a period of time?

18 A. I apologise. Right here and now I can tell you that I can recall

19 two such situations. The first one being that we picked it up from the

20 enemy lines concerning Mr. Muminovic's request, and in another

21 conversation Mr. Oric was mentioned.

22 Q. And are those both conversations that you recorded on tape and

23 then transcribed or summarised?

24 A. I don't have that material before me to view it, but as for the

25 Muminovic conversation, this was a very brief piece of information.

1 As for Oric, as far as I remember that conversation was noted down

2 in its entirety.

3 Q. Again, I know it's very difficult to remember, but when in May of

4 1999 Ms. Stefanie Frease showed you some books containing those

5 conversations, did you see one or both of those conversations in the books

6 you were shown?

7 A. I think I saw those intercepts in the notebooks.

8 Q. Were they in one notebook or more than one notebook that

9 Ms. Frease showed you?

10 A. You're going into great detail. I don't remember exactly.

11 Q. That's fair comment. I simply wondered whether you could help

12 me.

13 Now, I'm going to try very quickly in the time we have available

14 to turn to some of the intercepts which you made notes of, and the first

15 is our P1170, and can we start with A. That's the original book, please.

16 This is at tab 3 in your packet.

17 You've seen this before. This is the intercept -- it's in your

18 handwriting, isn't it?

19 A. Yes, this is my handwriting.

20 Q. And it's the intercept you've been shown before in which it

21 appears that there are at various stages four speakers.

22 MR. McCLOSKEY: Objection, that misstates the evidence.

23 MR. HAYNES: I'll just carry on. We've got a little amount of

24 time and objections really don't help.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: When he testified, he made it clear that Jokic -- or

1 Jocic equals X. Okay? Anyway, anyway, go ahead.

2 MR. HAYNES: I'm going to go on.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: The objection is perfectly valid.

4 MR. HAYNES:

5 Q. What appears in the third line there is that the X or Jocic wants

6 to speak to somebody called Travera Pera; is that right?

7 A. That's what it says here, and I assume it's correct.

8 Q. And that's somebody who he believes can get in such with

9 Obrenovic?

10 A. You're going into analysis of the conversation. I can read out

11 what I see here. That's all I can do. But, yes, it seems so.

12 Q. And then X says: "Hello again," and you start using the letter P

13 then. Is that because you identified a different voice to the Y you were

14 using him speaking to before?

15 A. That's what it was most likely. A third collocutor appeared, and

16 I assigned the letter P to him.

17 Q. Thank you. Just for -- to clear something up that's in the

18 English translation, the word "travar" means having to do with herbs in

19 Serbian, doesn't it?

20 A. I don't know. I put down Traver. I don't know whether it's got

21 anything to do with herbs or whether it's merely a nickname.

22 Q. That's very helpful because on the English translation there is a

23 little enigmatic section, but that's what it is. The word Traver means

24 herbs or herbalist and the English translator has put in their own

25 interpretation.

1 Now, towards the bottom of that intercept, two lines up from the

2 bottom of the page, so can we go down. Information is being given that

3 Vinko is being sent over there to his men. Again, that's something you

4 wrote down, isn't it?

5 A. Yes, that is what I wrote down.

6 Q. And can you recall now whether this was information that you

7 treated as particularly urgent and conveyed it to your command as quickly

8 as you could?

9 A. I can't recall that particular detail.

10 MR. HAYNES: Mr. President, I'm not going to finish tonight. I'm

11 very sorry. I've done my best.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: No problem --

13 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: No problem. We'll continue tomorrow. How much more

15 do you expect you need?

16 MR. HAYNES: About 15 minutes.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Okay. So you will have the next witness

18 ready tomorrow, and we'll need to finish the cross-examination, see

19 whether there is anything else, and then the documents or exhibits, and

20 then we can start with a new witness.

21 I thank everybody. We will reconvene tomorrow at 2.15 in the

22 afternoon. Thank you. Have a nice evening.

23 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 7.01 p.m.,

24 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 11th day

25 of January, 2007, at 9.00 a.m.