1 Friday, 14 February 2003

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 2.15 p.m.

5 JUDGE MUMBA: Please call the case.

6 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honours, this is case number

7 IT-95-9-T, the Prosecutor versus Blagoje Simic, Miroslav Tadic, and Simo

8 Zaric.

9 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, Mr. Lukic.

10 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honours, the

11 Defence is ready to bring the accused, Miroslav Tadic, to testify. So I

12 would please ask him to come to the witness stand.

13 [The accused Miroslav Tadic takes the stand]

14 JUDGE MUMBA: Please stand up and make the solemn declaration.

15 THE WITNESS: MIROSLAV TADIC

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

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

18 [Witness answered through interpreter]

19 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you, please sit down.

20 One of the judges isn't getting the English translation in spite

21 of being on channel 4.

22 THE INTERPRETER: Can you hear the translation now?

23 JUDGE MUMBA: I can hear.

24 MR. DI FAZIO: The Prosecution can hear clearly.

25 THE INTERPRETER: Can you hear the translation now. Can you hear?

1 One two three, one two three. Can you hear the translation?

2 JUDGE MUMBA: The two of us can hear.

3 THE INTERPRETER: Can you hear the translation now, one two three,

4 one two three. Can you hear, one two three.

5 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, I think we can hear.

6 Mr. Lukic, you can go ahead.

7 Examined by Mr. Lukic:

8 Q. [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Mr. Tadic. Could you please tell

9 us your first and last name, please?

10 A. My name is Miroslav Tadic.

11 Q. And can you please tell us, do you have any nicknames?

12 A. Yes, my nickname is Brko. And all of my family is also called

13 that, my wife is called Mrs. Brko and my son is called Brkos.

14 Q. Since we have a lot of information about you on record through

15 conversations with you, with the Prosecutor, I would like to cover that in

16 a different way, not all that is already known through your statements and

17 also from the indictment, but before we move to this information, could

18 you please tell the Chamber why you decided to testify?

19 The first thing that I want to ask you is when did you hear about

20 the indictment issued against you?

21 A. Before I begin my answer, I would like to just say a couple of

22 sentences about today. Five days ago -- five years ago, on the 14th of

23 February, 1998, I surrendered to SFOR. This was at the same place where

24 the major exchange took place in 1991 that is discussed here.

25 Regarding the indictment, I found out about it some time in 1995,

1 in late 1995 or early 1996 from the media, newspapers and so on.

2 Q. Could you please tell the Chamber --

3 JUDGE LINDHOLM: I think there is a mistake on second page, line

4 23, when the major exchange took place in 1991, shouldn't it be 1992?

5 A. No, in 1991, there was already talk about this exchange here and

6 we will talk some more about it.

7 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Are you thinking of the exchanges between Yugoslavia and Croatia

9 in Samac?

10 A. Yes, those are precisely the exchanges that I am talking about and

11 this is where I surrendered in the same place where these exchanges were

12 held.

13 Q. When did you have your first contacts with investigators from the

14 Prosecutor's office and how did you get in touch with them?

15 A. My first contacts with the investigators began in the spring of

16 1996. The people from the Croatian side with whom I cooperated and

17 worked, so from them, I found out that investigators were interested in me

18 and that they were willing, if I was willing, to conduct several

19 interviews with me by telephone. They even left me a telephone number

20 that I should call.

21 Q. And the people that you cooperated with, are you thinking of the

22 people who worked on the exchanges?

23 A. Yes, the people who worked on the Croatian side because the

24 investigators were in Orasje which belongs to that part.

25 Q. And when you got this telephone number, what happened then?

1 A. I thought for a couple of days, I thought about what to do for

2 about ten days, perhaps. I didn't want to consult with anyone, not even

3 to my nearest and dearest ones. I didn't tell them anything about it and

4 then one day, I think that it was the 26th of April, 1996, I called The

5 Hague.

6 A woman was on the other end, an interpreter, and she said that

7 the person that I was looking for was not there, that was Marija Velikonja

8 and she said that I should leave my telephone number and she would call me

9 when she comes back in about ten minutes or so.

10 Q. Could you please tell us how long this first telephone

11 conversation lasted between you and the investigator?

12 A. This first telephone conversation lasted about two hours, from two

13 to three hours.

14 Q. And at the end of that conversation, did you agree on anything?

15 A. Well, we did agree. First of all, I had to do an identification

16 in a certain way, and then we agreed that she would call me again in a day

17 or so and she asked me if I could send her any of the documents that we

18 mentioned. I told her that that was not a problem, that I would send them

19 by fax, she gave me a fax number and that's when the conversation ended.

20 After a couple of days, I used a fax in an institution to send to

21 send about 60 documents to Ms. Velikonja and after a couple of days,

22 perhaps, she called me again. This second conversation was mainly

23 clarification of the documents that I had sent her.

24 Q. And how long did this second conversation last?

25 A. The same, about two to three hours.

1 Q. And when did you decide to voluntarily surrender to this Tribunal?

2 A. Well, perhaps it's interesting to say that I had another

3 conversation, I think that that was the third conversation, and she told

4 me then that she will not talk to me anymore and she asked if she could

5 speak with my lawyer and if she could see my lawyer because she would

6 come, I think she said in the month of June in 1966.

7 Q. You mean 1996?

8 A. Yes, 1996, June 1996 that she could come to Orasje and that's how

9 it was. My lawyer went to Orasje and they had several meetings, perhaps

10 he stayed for three or four hours there, and then he returned. After

11 that, Ms. Velikonja came to Samac, she didn't have any contacts with me

12 but she did have contacts with the lawyer and after that, we didn't talk

13 again.

14 Q. My question was when did you decide to surrender and how did this

15 proceed?

16 A. These conversations that I had with the Prosecution -- the

17 Prosecutor's office, it was obvious that from the beginning, I was

18 thinking of getting in touch in a certain way and resolving this situation

19 that I found myself in. Finally, in 1997, in late 1997 and early 1998,

20 talks began. I think they were the representatives of the US embassy, we

21 had talks with them. I don't think they were representatives of the

22 Tribunal. So this was finalised in the end in mid-February, on the 13th

23 of February, this was finalised and concluded so that I should surrender

24 to the SFOR on the 14th of February.

25 Q. And what happened on the 14th of February, 1998?

1 A. Well, I would just like to say one sentence before this event.

2 These negotiations of mine also included the organs of Republika Srpska

3 and of the local authorities. General Shinseki was also present during

4 the negotiations and he issued instructions to the negotiators. On the

5 14th of February, around this time, the police of Republika Srpska came

6 and arrested me and I was handed over to the SFOR at 3.00 p.m., around

7 3.00 p.m.

8 Q. And then what happened?

9 A. After the surrender, we went through the regular routine

10 procedure. I was searched, things that I couldn't take with me were given

11 back, and then I was taken to the base in Tuzla, that's where the SFOR

12 accompanied me. Mr. Milan Simic was with me, General Shinseki was there

13 waiting for us and in a way, he commended us for this act and in a

14 conversation which lasted about an hour, he said that, I don't know, "the

15 procedure would be finished in three to six months," that's what he said,

16 because our condition upon surrender was that this should not take an

17 indeterminate amount of time.

18 Q. And there were also before you two accused who had surrendered to

19 this Tribunal; is this right?

20 A. Yes, that's right.

21 Q. And could you please tell me when did you give an interview or

22 have an interview with the Prosecution once you came to the Tribunal or

23 were taken to the detention centre?

24 A. As soon as the Prosecutor's office requested that, and this was in

25 late March, they talked to my lawyer and to myself and they asked us

1 whether we wanted to give this interview and I didn't have anything

2 against that so I think on the 26th of March of that year, 1998, I did

3 agree to be interviewed by the Office of the Prosecutor. I think it was

4 either the 26th or the 27th of March.

5 Q. A part of my question wasn't recorded on page 6, line 20, I asked

6 you: Were you and Milan Simic the first two accused who voluntarily

7 surrendered to the Tribunal and you answered yes?

8 A. Yes, I said that we were the first.

9 Q. And this interview that you gave and which has been tendered as an

10 exhibit here, which you gave to the Office of the Prosecutor in March

11 1998, did you give that interview under any pressure or did you agree to

12 it voluntarily of your own free will?

13 A. Just like everything else that happened before that, my

14 conversation with the Prosecutor and my surrender were just something that

15 I had decided to do.

16 Q. Thank you.

17 A. Allow me to mention that in the negotiations about surrender, the

18 lawyer of Mr. Zaric also took part in -- and he surrendered about ten days

19 later.

20 Q. And this was Mr. Pisarevic; is that right?

21 A. Yes, it is.

22 Q. And did the authorities of Republika Srpska take part in these

23 negotiations; do you have any information about that?

24 A. Yes. The authorities of Republika Srpska did participate, I don't

25 want to mention them now, and also the local authorities from Samac did.

1 Q. Now we will move to your particulars. Since some of that is

2 already contained in the interview, I --

3 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, Mr. Di Fazio.

4 MR. DI FAZIO: I'm not objecting to anything, I'm just seeking a

5 clarification. I wonder if Mr. Lukic could clarify, he mentioned, asked

6 the witness, Mr. Tadic, if Republika Srpska officials participated in the

7 negotiations. I wonder if we could be clear about what particular

8 negotiations he is -- Mr. Tadic is talking about. Are they negotiations

9 upon surrender, are they negotiations of the Prosecutors over the

10 telephone or are they some other negotiations because it may assume, it

11 may assume some importance later.

12 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes.

13 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, Mr. Lukic.

14 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] I think I and the witness understood

15 one another but perhaps the question was not well formulated.

16 Q. Which negotiations pertaining to what decisions -- in which

17 negotiations pertaining to what decisions did the Republika Srpska and

18 local authorities participate?

19 A. I said that the Republika Srpska and local authorities

20 participated in the negotiations upon surrender in February 1998. I

21 didn't mention any names, but if necessary, I can provide some names but I

22 think that this is --

23 Q. It's not necessary.

24 You were born on the 12th of May, 1937 in the village of Novi Grad

25 in the municipality of Odzak where your family is also from and you

1 described in the interview on page 9 and 10, you talked about your

2 schooling, your work history, and experience and this is something that I

3 do not really wish to talk about because this is something that you have

4 stated and this is something that you stand by; is that right?

5 A. Yes, it is.

6 Q. When did you come to Samac, how long have you been living in

7 Samac, this is mentioned in the interview but I would like to know what

8 you were doing, what your job was in Samac once you came to live there?

9 A. In 1991, I went to university and at that time, it was normal for

10 students to get grants.

11 Q. It states here 1991, can you please correct that?

12 A. No. It should be 1961, that's when I went to university. At that

13 time, it was usual for students to receive grants, scholarships and I got

14 a scholarship from the Samac municipality because also my intention was

15 that once I completed my studies I would come and work in Samac.

16 Q. And when was -- when did you come back to Samac?

17 MR. LAZAREVIC: Just one small correction in the transcript. I

18 don't believe it is very significant but it would be good to have

19 everything clear, the condition of receiving scholarship was to return to

20 Bosanski Samac, this is actually what the witness said.

21 JUDGE MUMBA: Very well.

22 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Excuse me, Mr. Lukic, before you continue, I know

23 that you said in your question on page 8 and 9 that you don't want to talk

24 about or questioned Mr. Tadic about his work history and experience;

25 however, I have a recollection from one of the interviews with the OTP,

1 Mr. Tadic, you were a member of the armed forces, I think, and was it that

2 you went to Suez?

3 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] That's what I intended to ask, yes.

4 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Perfect. Then, Mr. Lukic, I will leave it in

5 your hands.

6 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] I had the intention but I first wanted

7 to deal with personal data.

8 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Don't worry about it. Do it at the time that you

9 think is correct from the point of view of your examination-in-chief.

10 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.

11 Q. Since when have you lived in Samac?

12 A. I've already said that after two years of university, in the

13 autumn of 1963, I came to work in Samac although I am not from Samac

14 originally.

15 Q. How long did you work as a teacher in Samac?

16 A. Starting in 1963 up until the end of 1983 so just above 20 years.

17 That's the time I spent working at the educational centre.

18 Q. As a teacher?

19 A. Yes, as a teacher, first primary grades and second upper grades of

20 the elementary school.

21 Q. We will say a few more words about your origins, I think that's

22 important for the case. We have asked almost every witness here how long

23 his or her ancestors had lived for in the area and I will ask you the

24 same, for how long have your ancestors lived in the municipality of Odzak

25 and in that area in general?

1 A. My village called Novi Grad is not a town at all, it's a village,

2 although the word Grad in Serbian means town and the village has had that

3 name for some 300 years and my ancestors lived there from the very early

4 days. We were there when the Turks arrived and left the area, when

5 Austria came and left we were there to see the communism through and

6 that's how it was. We were also there when this unfortunate war came in

7 1992.

8 Q. In the interview you gave to OTP on page 14, you said that you

9 didn't have parents, can you explain briefly what happened to your

10 parents?

11 A. I have already explained that in the interview and I wouldn't like

12 to go back into that again.

13 Q. How many siblings do you have?

14 A. I have two brothers and a sister.

15 Q. And who is the eldest?

16 A. I am the eldest.

17 Q. Just tell me, please, were you war orphans?

18 A. Yes, not just myself, but the rest of us as well.

19 Q. Thank you. Now, please tell me, before the events of 1991 and

20 1992, did you have any relatives living in the village Novi Grad?

21 A. Most of my relatives live in Novi Grad.

22 Q. And have done so --

23 A. Yes, have done so throughout all of these years since 1992.

24 Q. Can you please tell me about your wife?

25 A. My wife's name is Mirjana.

1 Q. And where does her family hail from?

2 A. From my village as well, Novi Grad.

3 Q. In your interview with OTP, you've described your family situation

4 however there have been some changes since so could we please clarify, how

5 many children do you have, Mr. Tadic?

6 A. Let me just mention that my wife is a war orphan as well.

7 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Mr. Lukic, I presume we will get some clarity, I

8 think we all know war orphans means World War II but for the record, that

9 we know it's World War II, and maybe we should have some sense as to who

10 the alleged perpetrators were, was it Germany, was it Croatia, was it

11 somebody else? I leave it up to you to handle the question.

12 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] It was very difficult for me to get

13 this story out of my client. I've tried over the past three years. I've

14 asked him whether he wanted to tell this story he said no, so I wouldn't

15 insist, but however, if you wish I can ask him again and see whether he

16 would like to reply.

17 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Mr. Tadic, I don't want to upset you by asking

18 this so I would ask for just a very brief answer but it would give us some

19 sense as to who the -- which side were the alleged perpetrators of these

20 deaths so just, you know, in one sentence or two, not anything long. I

21 don't want to upset you.

22 A. I would kindly ask you to leave that for later.

23 JUDGE WILLIAMS: That's fine. We'll come back to it later.

24 There's no problem.

25 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

1 Q. I've asked you about your children.

2 A. I said -- or rather you've already mentioned that I have a son and

3 a daughter.

4 Q. Throughout the war and after the war, did your son get married,

5 does he have children now, where does he live now?

6 A. My son got married during the war. He has lived with me

7 throughout the entire time. He's living with me now and he has two sons.

8 Q. What about your daughter, where was she during the war, is she

9 married, does she have children?

10 A. My daughter got married in 1987 and has lived in Switzerland

11 since, she has two children.

12 Q. Can you tell us something about the ethnicity of your son-in-law,

13 your daughter's husband?

14 A. He is a Croat.

15 Q. And what is your ethnicity, Mr. Tadic?

16 A. I am a Serb.

17 Q. Are you religious?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. I will now return to what Judge Williams mentioned. We know when

20 you served in the army, it is stated in the interview but can you it will

21 us in what branch of service did you serve and was there anything peculiar

22 about your military service?

23 A. I went to serve in the army in 1957. I served in Karlovac in

24 Croatia and I was in the engineering corps. After the initial three

25 months of training, I was transferred to Pozarevac which is in Serbia and

1 sometime in late 1998 --

2 Q. Just a minute, please.

3 A. -- no, in 1958, in late 1958, there were amongst 350 soldiers who

4 went from Yugoslavia to Egypt, I was among them. I went to Egypt on the

5 4th of December, 1958 and I remained there for six and a half months

6 approximately. So that means that I returned sometime in mid-June 1959.

7 Q. Within what forces were you serving and under whose flag were you

8 serving in Egypt?

9 A. Those were the UN forces. At the time, there were ten states

10 providing their troops for the UN forces, Yugoslavia was among them,

11 Brazil, India, Sweden, Norway, Canada --

12 Q. That's fine.

13 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Could the witness now be shown a

14 photograph which had been analysed during the OTP interview and in order

15 to avoid any confusion, I would like the photograph to be shown to the

16 witness and tendered into evidence just so that we avoid any confusion.

17 Q. Mr. Tadic, what is depicted in this picture, is that the

18 photograph that you had shown to the OTP investigators during the

19 interview?

20 A. Well, one of the photographs. There were a number of photographs

21 shown during the interview and I can't recollect whether this particular

22 one was shown as well. This was taken, I believe, in spring of 1988, I

23 apologise, spring of 1989 [As interpreted]. It was taken in Suez. We

24 went to greet Tito as he was arriving in Egypt.

25 Q. And where were you -- where are you in this picture?

1 A. Well I'm here, 40 some years ago. These are two Egyptian

2 soldiers, this is a non-commissioned officer of the Yugoslav army and this

3 here are just citizens.

4 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Could we please record that Miroslav

5 Tadic indicated the second person from the right as himself in this

6 photograph.

7 JUDGE WILLIAMS: And we can also get a clarification for the

8 transcript because it says on 25 that this photograph was the spring of

9 1989. It's obviously wrong.

10 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Yes, I wanted to clarify that.

11 Q. Can you please tell us what year was this? Please take a minute

12 and think about it and tell us when was the picture taken?

13 A. I might have made a mistake. I said that it was in the spring of

14 1959 when this photograph was taken, springtime, January, February, or

15 March, around that time.

16 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Could this photograph be admitted

17 into evidence, please, if there are no objections?

18 Q. You have a moustache here and this is what you told to the OTP?

19 A. Yes.

20 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, any objection from the Prosecution?

21 MR. DI FAZIO: None at all.

22 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes. The photograph will be admitted and the --

23 Mr. Tadic as shown as described by counsel. Can we have the number,

24 please.

25 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour, the number is D143/3.

1 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you.

2 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

3 Q. Just a few questions regarding your past. Were you ever, and if

4 so how long, a member of any party in the pre-war Yugoslavia?

5 A. While I was in Egypt, I was given a recommendation to become a

6 member of the then League of Communists of Yugoslavia. The recommendation

7 followed me to Odzak through the usual channels; however, I didn't go back

8 to Odzak immediately after finishing my service. It wasn't until 1961

9 that I came to Odzak and the recommendation was already there waiting and

10 this is when I was admitted into the League of Communists of Yugoslavia.

11 Q. How long did you remain as a member of the League of Communists of

12 Yugoslavia?

13 A. I was a member of the League of Communists up until 1972,

14 approximately around that time. At the time, I worked in a school as you

15 already know, and I usually worked in the afternoon shift. The

16 organisation of the League of Communists was then made based on

17 neighborhoods where people lived and the meetings were usually held in the

18 afternoon, therefore, I very seldom was able to attend them.

19 The then secretary exerted pressure on me asking -- requesting

20 that I attend meetings. I said that I couldn't, and then he said that I

21 would be removed from the records and in 1972, that's exactly what he told

22 me, that I was removed from the records due to inactivity. That doesn't

23 mean that I was discharged from the party or anything like that, I was

24 simply removed from the records.

25 Q. Did that have any impact on your career, on your life in Samac

1 then, what was life like for those who were not members of the party but

2 still had some public roles?

3 A. Since I didn't really have a political career, I had no political

4 ambitions, it basically had no impact. I continued with my job. I had

5 some minor problems but nothing significant.

6 Q. Did you become a member of some other political party after

7 leaving the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and what about nowadays?

8 A. At the time, there was no other political party and I did not join

9 any political party when the multi-party elections were held either. I am

10 not a member of any political party now either. I might become a member

11 of some party after this.

12 Q. So to conclude, after leaving the League of Communists, you never

13 joined another political party?

14 A. Yes, precisely so.

15 Q. Do you have any convictions?

16 A. No. I've never even been a witness.

17 Q. Now we're going to move to a different topic. I would like to ask

18 you a few questions regarding your acquaintance with the other accused

19 from this case. You also talked about that in your interview, but we

20 would like to hear some details on that topic.

21 Before the war, did you personally know Dr. Blagoje Simic, and

22 when I say before the war, I would like to be specific, before April 1992?

23 A. I said that during my interview and I'm saying it now, I did not

24 know Mr. Blagoje Simic. I said that I knew his father.

25 Q. And Simo Zaric?

1 A. I got to know Simo Zaric as a student. At the school where I

2 worked, he was one of the students; however, later when he finished

3 school, he went on his way, went to university, and then on his return to

4 Samac, we didn't have any contacts or any common interests. More

5 intensive contacts between us actually began once he retired and this was

6 in the late 1980s, in the late 1990s, in 1989. He would come to my cafe,

7 we would play billiards and so on, we would socialise, but before that, we

8 didn't really know each other.

9 Q. And before the war, did you know Milan Simic, did you socialise

10 with him?

11 A. No, before the war, I didn't know Milan Simic but I knew his

12 father.

13 Q. And did you know Stevan Todorovic before the war?

14 A. No, I didn't know him. He stated here in the courtroom that he

15 was one of my students, but I don't remember him as a student. It was

16 probably -- he was probably an average student because a person usually

17 remembers the best and the worst students so I don't remember him.

18 Afterwards when he went away to university, he spent along time with his

19 studies and when he returned to Samac, we didn't have any common

20 interests. I didn't know him. I didn't see him.

21 Q. Before the war, did you visit Simo Zaric or Blagoje Simic in their

22 apartments, in their homes?

23 A. I didn't know where Blagoje lived. First of all, I didn't know

24 where Simo lived until I found out about that here. I knew that he lived

25 somewhere in 62, that's what the name of that building was, but I didn't

1 know any more details about that. I never went to either Simo's or

2 Blagoje's home but that does not mean that Simo didn't visit me, he

3 frequently came to the cafe and perhaps he even came to my flat. I don't

4 know.

5 Q. Thank you. Now, I would like to discuss the political life and

6 that environment in the Samac municipality before the outbreak of the

7 conflict. Could you please describe to us how did the appearance of a

8 multi-party system in the territory of Yugoslavia make you feel and how

9 was that reflected in the municipality of Samac and how did you relate

10 those events with the break-up of Yugoslavia?

11 A. The events in the late 1990s.

12 Q. I have to correct you. Are you thinking of the late 1980s and the

13 early 1990s?

14 A. Yes, I'm thinking of the year 1989 and 1990 and I'm thinking about

15 the 1998 or 1988 --

16 MR. DI FAZIO: If Your Honours please I'm concerned about this

17 line of questioning. Of course I have no objection at all to Mr. Lukic

18 leading evidence of the effect on Mr. Tadic himself and what he observed

19 around him during the events involving the break-up of Yugoslavia. Of

20 course he can speak directly to that and I have no problem with that, but

21 I was wondering if Mr. Lukic intends to go into more general political

22 matters concerning the break-up of Yugoslavia, in which case Mr. Tadic

23 does not appear to be qualified to speak about those sorts of matters.

24 Again, I repeat, if the object is to lead evidence concerning what

25 Mr. Tadic himself experienced and saw, I've got no problem at all.

1 JUDGE MUMBA: I'm sure Mr. Lukic understands the -- Mr. Di Fazio's

2 point.

3 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] My question was very general and I

4 have no intention of going into any kind of political polemic. It could

5 be just a general question, how did he experience as a citizen the breakup

6 of Yugoslavia and the situation and all these things that were happening

7 around him.

8 A. It's obvious that I was not a politically active person and that

9 I'm not from that field and that I'm not an expert in that area, but in

10 any case as an average citizen, I can have my own view and opinion and

11 it's certainly not an expert or scientific opinion, but it's mine.

12 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, you can go ahead and express it.

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] So should I start?

14 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. Yes, start.

16 A. In 1989, 1990, 1991, any objective observer could see that

17 Yugoslavia will break-up. Of course, all of those who were in favour of

18 Yugoslavia went through a very difficult time then and I counted myself

19 amongst them because I spent all of my life in that Yugoslavia which was

20 on its last legs. At that time, Yugoslavia broke apart into individual

21 republics and it wasn't perhaps the actual break-up but it was a kind of

22 break-up - and there was party activity within the republics unused to the

23 multi-party system or more parties than one - all those who were heading

24 those multi-party parties brought about quite bad relations amongst all of

25 those participants. The programmes were mostly in the background.

1 Everybody attacked everything and one of the most attacked things was that

2 former Yugoslavia and communism which was supposed to leave the scene.

3 Q. Could you please tell us, what did you base your conclusions on?

4 What was the source of your information?

5 A. The source of my information were television, radio, the

6 newspapers, conversations with friends, acquaintances, even conversations

7 that took part in -- that took place in the restaurant. There were those

8 there who did have something significant to say.

9 Q. After the multi-party elections in Bosnia and the victory of the

10 national parties, what was your position on those policies and what was

11 your knowledge about the programme of those parties and their activities?

12 I'm thinking of the SDS, the SDA and the HDZ.

13 A. Already a lot has been said in the Chamber about that, about the

14 victory of the national parties, not because they promised something

15 better to the people who were hoping for something better, but because

16 they were mostly trying to replace the to-date regime, that's what the

17 abolishment of the communist system meant, that's what it was in the whole

18 of Bosnia and that's what it was like in Samac. I wouldn't speak about

19 the constituting of the organs of power, but I can say something about the

20 people, individuals who came to certain posts. You heard that the

21 president of the municipality was Mato Nujic, a person well known to me,

22 he worked very close to my house at the medical centre. I never

23 noticed that he excelled in anything in particular before those

24 multi-party elections. The president of the executive board was Mirko

25 Jovanovic, a completely unknown person in Samac. He -- even though he was

1 born in Samac, in the Samac municipality, I found that out later. I think

2 he came from Orasje or from somewhere and he became the president of the

3 executive board. Vinko Dragicevic became the chief of the SUP.

4 Other posts were also distributed in a similar fashion. Regarding

5 Vinko Dragicevic since I knew all of his family very well from his

6 grandfather down to him, his father, his uncles, I knew that family very

7 well. He was quite qualified to be the chief of SUP, in a manner of

8 speaking, because his grandfather was an Ustasa in the Second World War,

9 World War II and it didn't bother me.

10 I was on pretty good terms with his grandfather. However, Vinko

11 did have one fault, his wife was a Serb and it was well-known that he

12 wouldn't last long and that turned out to be true. He -- a man like him

13 could not remain for long in such a responsible post. Ivo Kobas was

14 mentioned here well, his wife was also a Serb and he was replaced and so

15 on and so forth.

16 As a citizen, I didn't have any special stance on this new

17 division of power or this new authority. I worked just like I did before

18 then, normally, I paid my taxes, I received various inspections, and this

19 would probably have remained the same for a long time if the war hadn't

20 broken out.

21 Q. Could you please tell us, you said that you were on good terms

22 with the Dragicevic family. Let us remind the Chamber what was the

23 ethnicity of the Dragicevics?

24 A. The Dragicevics were Croats. His father, Anto, who has also been

25 mentioned in this courtroom, was one of those 14 who were in Belgrade, who

1 were detained in Belgrade.

2 Q. We will discuss that later.

3 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Mr. Tadic, you mentioned concerning this

4 gentleman Vinko Dragicevic, in fact, on page 22, lines 12 to 14, you said

5 in your words: "He was quite qualified to be the chief of SUP, in a

6 manner of speaking, because his grandfather was an Ustasa in the Second

7 World War and it didn't bother me." I just wonder what you actually meant

8 by that why he was qualified to be chief of the SUP in a manner of

9 speaking because his grand dad had been a Ustasa in World War II and it

10 didn't bother you. Maybe just very briefly you could just say a word or

11 two or what you actually meant.

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I didn't say that he was qualified.

13 I don't know how that can be translated. I said that he had a pedigree.

14 I don't know how you can translate that into English, so he was

15 predisposed, he had predisposition to get such a high post because the HDZ

16 was a kind of continuation, the end product of a policy which was very

17 painful for the Serbs in World War II.

18 JUDGE WILLIAMS: That seems to obviously be a translation problem

19 that quite qualified and now Mr. Tadic has elaborated. Thank you,

20 Mr. Tadic.

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I also said that that was his

22 grandfather and not his father.

23 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Yes, I understand that.

24 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. And you also knew his grandfather, didn't you?

1 A. Yes, I knew his grandfather, grandfather Ivo.

2 Q. And were you on good terms with him?

3 A. I visited him at his home often and I was also on good terms with

4 all of his sons and his grandsons and Vinko was -- Vinko Dragicevic was

5 one of those grandsons.

6 Q. Just to clarify this term "pedigree," in your opinion, the HDZ

7 which was one of the participants in the organs of power, was it a

8 recommendation if any of the forebearers were identified with the Ustasa

9 movement in Croatia or came from it?

10 A. In my humble opinion, yes, that's how it was because throughout

11 that whole period, and the position of the HDZ to the various posts, this

12 was evident. I didn't know Mato Nujic or his family so I cannot say

13 anything particular about him, but about Vinko Dragicevic, I knew

14 everything.

15 Q. Please tell me, have you heard of Yutel what is it, and did it

16 play an interesting role in the political life in Samac during

17 pre-wartime?

18 A. During the multi-party elections in Samac it wasn't only national

19 parties that participated, there were other political parties as well such

20 as Reformed Communists, Liberals and some other ones. Another party was

21 the political party of Ante Markovic, I believe it was called Reformist

22 Forces or something to that effect.

23 At the time, Anto Markovic was prime minister of Yugoslavia.

24 Prior to multi-party elections, he was prime minister of Yugoslavia. And

25 he established this Reformist Forces party during that period of time and

1 that party had quite a lot of supporters. It was quite active in Samac as

2 well. A very good friend of mine was an advocate of that party and he

3 tried to put up posters of Ante Markovic in my cafe. I objected to that

4 and he said "Well, we're friends," and then I said to him that if he put

5 up Ante Markovic's posters in my cafe, then everybody else would be

6 entitled to doing the same and then my cafe would turn into a political

7 campaign centre.

8 Yutel stands for -- is an abbreviation and it stands for Yugoslav

9 Television and Ante Markovic was especially frequently mentioned and

10 popularised by that television station. However Ante Markovic's party did

11 not achieve any significant results either in Samac or at the republic

12 level or at the level of Yugoslavia itself. It achieved the least success

13 in Croatia and was a bit more successful in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

14 Q. I will ask you something else which is not directly linked to

15 political life, but has something to do with that pre-war period of time.

16 What was your attitude with respect to the orthodox church and is there

17 anything you would like to tell us regarding the church?

18 A. Some time towards the end of 1991 or rather on the 13th of

19 October, 1991, in the Serbian village called Donja Dubica a Serbian

20 orthodox church was renewed, reconstructed and the patriarch came to bless

21 the new place of worship and I was a kum or a patron during that ceremony

22 and this is where I got to meet the patriarch.

23 Q. Who was patriarch at the time, what was his name?

24 A. It was Patriarch Pavle and he is patriarch to this day.

25 Q. Could you please explain to the Trial Chamber what does this word

1 "a kum to the church" mean and where is this village of Donja Dubica

2 located, in which municipality?

3 A. Donja Dubica is in Odzak municipality. At the time when the

4 ceremony was held to consecrate the church, patriarch was the highest

5 member of the clergy attending the ceremony and I as a kum or as a patron

6 was the highest ranked civilian, layperson, attending the ceremony. A

7 kumship has very deep roots among the orthodox people and a person who is

8 a kum is held in respect.

9 Q. How did the municipal authority function then in 1991 and what

10 impact did it have on you as an ordinary member or citizen of Samac?

11 A. I've already said that there were no visible changes, simply the

12 people in offices changed but the institutions remained the same, it's

13 just that people at their helm were different. The rest of the staff

14 working in institutions was the same. Inspectorate was probably one of

15 the most interesting elements of administration for me because inspectors

16 frequently come to inspect, to conduct controls and so on, and they

17 started going in teams of two or three so that they would have Muslims and

18 Croats in the team and so there wouldn't be any objections to the

19 composition of the inspection team. For example, somebody could complain

20 that the inspection team was composed of two Muslims or two Serbs and so

21 on, so inspection teams took care to have a mixed composition.

22 I knew some other people. I knew, for example, Izet Izetbegovic

23 well, he was vice-president of executive council. I also knew Mirko Lukic

24 who later after the negotiations became director of the inspectorate;

25 however, I had no interests or no problems and therefore I seldom went to

1 the municipal building at the time. I never had the honour of meeting

2 officially Nujic or Mirko --

3 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters missed the last name of --

4 A. -- or Vinko Dragicevic. What I meant to say is that I never got

5 to meet them officially.

6 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Could you please slow down, Mr. Tadic.

7 Q. Could you please repeat the three names that you've mentioned.

8 One of them was Nujic Mato, the second one was Mirko Jovanovic and the

9 third one Vinko Dragicevic; is that right?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Just please slow down a bit.

12 A. These were the persons one would apply to if one had some

13 problems.

14 Q. At the time, you had -- you were businessman, you had a private

15 catering establishment - we will return to that later - but this is what

16 you did for a living; is that right?

17 A. Yes. At the time I had a privately-owned catering establishment

18 and that was my job.

19 Q. I would like now to turn to something that we had described as

20 incidents in the territory of Samac municipality. We've heard about that

21 quite a lot but I would now like to ask you to describe what has impressed

22 you the most, first of all concerning the war in neighbouring Croatia and

23 the volunteers who took part in that war. What happened then, and what

24 were the first information that reached you?

25 A. Living at the border where on one side a war was waged and the

1 other side lived in peace was not easy because everything would be

2 reflected back and forth. So on both -- on two sides of the Sava River

3 people simply held different views and the events had different

4 repercussions on two different sides.

5 For them, on the other side, it was perhaps normal to see somebody

6 in a boat on the Sava River and they didn't think it was anything unusual

7 to fire a few bullets at that person because, at the time, we still didn't

8 have an established border going through the Sava River; however, for us,

9 that event would have been quite shocking. During the war in Croatia,

10 there were people who went to fight there as volunteers from our area and

11 occasionally, they would come back either for leave or after they were

12 permanently discharged, they would come in uniforms frequently and one

13 could also frequently see them bearing arms so the situation perhaps

14 didn't seem unusual for some people on the other side, but for us, who

15 still held old-time views, the situation was very unusual.

16 Those people who came from the front sometimes bearing arms,

17 sometimes unarmed, usually provoked conflicts. I remember quite a number

18 of such conflicts. I remember that in a coffee bar called kum, there was

19 a scuffle between those guys and the owner Lazo Stanisic. I remember that

20 in the discotheque called Cusa these guys would appear quite often and

21 they would always make trouble and throw out the patrons that they didn't

22 like.

23 Once, they even started spreading a rumour that one of those guys

24 had disappeared, disappeared, inverted commas, and they had accused

25 soldiers of the Yugoslav Peoples' Army for that although there were none

1 in the vicinity. I remember that on one occasion I sat in my friend's

2 back yard, that was in 1991 in late fall, and a man came in uniform,

3 armed, into the back yard of this relative of mine. I recognised the man,

4 his name was Galic and he was from Odzak municipality. I knew him

5 superficially, he greeted me, he said, "How are you going, Brko?" I

6 responded because I thought it was wiser to respond as he was wearing a

7 uniform and was armed.

8 Then I asked him, "Why were you wearing uniform, why are you

9 armed?" and he replied to me saying, "All of this area will be part of

10 Croatia so there is no -- nothing unusual about me wearing uniform and

11 weapons." So all of this created quite a tense environment for the

12 population.

13 Q. What uniform did the man wear?

14 A. He wore the uniform of the National Guard Corps and those were

15 Croatian forces.

16 Q. And what was the environment like on television, was there any

17 propaganda, did you follow the news programmes and so on?

18 A. The propaganda itself was worse than war. All of those things

19 that did not take place in reality or during war were portrayed as having

20 happened on television or in the press or were portrayed on television or

21 in the press in much worse light; therefore, the television and the press

22 had a major role in spreading fear and escalating tensions.

23 I remember some other details and they were mentioned here as well

24 so I will only touch upon them briefly. These soldiers had crossed over

25 from Croatia to Samac municipality and disarmed some of our policemen.

1 This has been described here. And under normal circumstances, this would

2 be an unbelievable inconceivable event for some soldiers to come and

3 disarm policemen, official policemen. And one of the witnesses here said

4 that this was just a minor incident and that the weapons had been returned

5 later on.

6 I also remember that an acquaintance of mine who was drunk made a

7 mistake and turned toward the bridge separating Bosanski and Slavonski

8 Samac and as he approached the bridge, they opened fire upon him from

9 heavy weapons and seriously injured him, although he was still on our side

10 or rather on the part of the bridge belonging to Samac municipality. But

11 despite of that, a policeman from Croatia took him by force to Slavonski

12 Brod, to Croatia to take care of him there although Samac, Bosanski Samac

13 and the health centre there was only a kilometre away.

14 Q. Which bridge do you have in mind?

15 A. The bridge over the Sava River between Slavonski Samac, which is

16 in Croatia, and Bosanski Samac which is in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

17 Q. You've mentioned some wounding people having been wounded in a

18 boat on the Sava River?

19 A. Those were residents of Samac. I don't think I need to mention

20 any names but they were simply riding in a boat along the river because we

21 didn't have war on our territory, and as they rowed in a boat, people from

22 Croatia started shooting at them. It was summertime and people went for a

23 swim in the river.

24 Q. Do you remember anyone getting killed in a brick factory called

25 Ciglana and what impact did that event have?

1 A. This event in Ciglana, the brick factory, had quite an impact upon

2 the relations and the situation in town. Vujadin Goranovic [As

3 interpreted] was a student of mine and he was in a town in the vicinity

4 and a shell had been launched from Croatia and fell in the compound of the

5 company where he was working. Several people were wounded and he got

6 killed. Since his elder brothers were my students as well, I attended the

7 funeral. His wife is a Croat and this complicated matters further. The

8 situation was quite tense at that funeral. There were a lot of Croats and

9 there were a lot of Serbs attending the funeral.

10 I wouldn't like to go into the events in Sijekovac because that

11 has been mentioned often and everybody by now knows what happened there

12 and what impact that had on relations in our area.

13 Q. But that event in Sjekovac was precisely at that period of time

14 when this event with Goranovic took place?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. And when did the sabotage on the Sava River take place and what

17 impact did that have on the life in Samac?

18 A. There were sabotages from late 1991 and in early 1992. The bridge

19 in Orasje was first destroyed which was the link between Tuzla and

20 Zupanja. This was a very bad time and it's strange that somebody would

21 think about knocking down such an imposing bridge over the Sava River. I

22 think it was about 800 metres long.

23 After that, the bridge over the Sava River in Samac was damaged.

24 The bridge in Brcko was destroyed. I'm sorry that we are not able to show

25 a document here sent by the Crisis Staff of Slavonski Brod from Croatia to

1 Mr. Mato Nujic informing him that the bridge was mined and that if there

2 is anything suspicious on the Samac side, they would blow up this bridge.

3 This did happen later so that the bridge on the Sava River in Samac was

4 blown up, it was mined and blown up.

5 Q. I think there will be an opportunity to discuss this document

6 later on in the proceedings.

7 Could you please tell us the following, there are two events here

8 that have been frequently described so I don't want to discuss them so

9 much but just the consequences and how did you experience them.

10 First of all, how did you experience the blowing up of Grga

11 Zubak's kiosk?

12 A. Grga Zubak's kiosk and when it was blown up was something that

13 upset all the citizens of Samac and everybody else because Grga Zubak's

14 kiosk was in the parking of the SUP and there are always one, two or three

15 duty officers in the SUP all the time who are constantly monitoring the

16 parking so this was an additional upset to the population that it was

17 possible to mine a kiosk, blow up a kiosk that was on the parking of the

18 SUP and if that was possible then anything else is possible in other

19 places. It was never found out who blew up the kiosk or the bridge or

20 some other facilities even though the Samac bridge had 12 officers on duty

21 who were guarding it around the clock and in spite of that the bridge was

22 blown up, so it's not up to me to draw the conclusions.

23 Another event that was mentioned here as well is the namesake of

24 today's date and that is the Valentino Cafe.

25 Q. And it happened on the same day?

1 A. Yes. It happened on the same day. I wouldn't want to talk about

2 that too much, everything has already been said but I would like to

3 mention a few things about a meeting that was held after that. There was

4 a meeting held in the cinema hall because of that event and I attended

5 this meeting. It's already been said who the speakers were at the

6 meeting. I wouldn't want to talk about that, but at one point one citizen

7 of Samac, Abdibegovic, stood up and proposed that the -- a memorial be

8 built in the park for all the young men who were killed.

9 Naturally, I thought that this was not an appropriate act. They

10 are not people who would need a monument built for them in a park, but

11 after that applause broke out and I understood that after that, you

12 couldn't even think about opposing any idea of that kind and this actually

13 indicates this collective identity of the people and so on that it is not

14 possible to oppose such a collective opinion even though it's not right,

15 but it's impossible to do anything in that sense.

16 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] I think that we could go on a break

17 now.

18 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes. We will resume our proceedings at 1615 hours.

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

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

21 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, Mr. Lukic, you are continuing.

22 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. We ended with the pre-war events in Samac, but I wanted to ask you

24 a couple of more things unrelated to these incidents and this is something

25 that His Honour Judge Lindholm asked you about when you mentioned the

1 place where you surrendered. Could you please tell us what you know about

2 those pre-war exchanges the exchange in the municipality of Samac, and did

3 you have any direct contacts in this regard or do you have any direct

4 knowledge?

5 A. Those events in 1991 have already been discussed here so I will

6 just add some details. Samac, since the bridge in Orasje was already

7 destroyed at that time, and in Brcko also, the only connection with

8 Croatia was the bridge in Bosanski Samac and this is probably the reason

9 why the two opposing sides, Yugoslavia and Croatia agreed to conduct the

10 exchange of prisoners in Samac, prisoners and other persons at the time

11 who happened to be on one or the other side. This was in late 1991 and

12 there were several such exchanges. The witness Izet talked about this and

13 he provided a lot of details about that because he was directly

14 participating in it.

15 I was curious about it, let me put it that way, so I went to see

16 what these exchangers looked like and what was going on there. I saw the

17 procedure, the International Red Cross and so on, and then after certain

18 amount of time, a friend of mine came and she told me that her two sons

19 were captured and that they were to be exchanged that day and she asked

20 me, since she wasn't from that area, to go with her, because she didn't

21 know where it was.

22 Q. Just one moment, please. When you say after a certain period of

23 time, this is still happening?

24 A. Yes, this is still 1991,, it was after the first exchange, so the

25 second exchange happened after a certain amount of time and she asked me

1 to go with her. So I went with her and then I was able to look at what

2 was happening more immediately. Her two sons came, the International Red

3 Cross was there, and when they came to say whether they wanted to be

4 exchanged or not they said that they didn't want to go to the other side.

5 The International Red Cross noted that down, and they came back to Samac

6 with my friend and for a while, they spent some time in Novi Grad because

7 that wife was from Novi Grad, that woman was from Novi Grad. So it was

8 that principle of saying whether you wanted to be exchanged or not. The

9 International Red Cross was distributing sandwiches there and so on so I

10 could see a little bit about how these exchanges were organised.

11 Q. In early 1991, these incidents that you described, what were the

12 consequences to the life in the city, what was the reaction to that? Was

13 there a change in the way of life of all of those different ethnic groups

14 in the town of Samac?

15 A. All of those things that happened in late 1991 and early 1992 had

16 a lot of influence on the life in Samac. Some people were influenced

17 more, some less, it depends how people took it. At the time, a lot of

18 refugees had arrived from Croatia. They were either -- they either had

19 family connections with Samac or they came there because they didn't have

20 anywhere else to go. They were either taken in by their families and

21 those who didn't have any relatives were accommodated in the houses of

22 people who were willing to receive them.

23 I also received a family into my household, a family that I didn't

24 know from before. It was a husband and a wife and two young girls of high

25 school age, approximately. And the school year, 1991/1992, they spent at

1 my house. They went to the economics school in Samac. When war broke out

2 in Samac, they went back to a part of Croatia where there were no combat

3 operations.

4 Many citizens, when the tensions were pretty high, tried to leave

5 Samac to take their families out simply if it was possible, they tried to

6 reduce as much as possible the number of their family there in case

7 something should happen. I didn't have any feelings like that, I didn't

8 have a sense of it. In the beginning I didn't think that there would be

9 war and my personal feeling was that if anything should happen because

10 based on the talk going round at the time, separation, line of division,

11 and all of these international commissions and the cantonisation of

12 Bosnia, I don't know, division into, let me call them cantons, I thought

13 that this would take about 15 days, this division, and then everything

14 would return to normal so I didn't try to do anything in terms of getting

15 my family out or anything like that.

16 Q. Could you please tell us if you heard anything about the forming

17 of the Serbian municipality of Samac and Pelagicevo in the process of

18 being established, and if you did, what did you hear and from whom?

19 A. This was precisely what I was talking about earlier. There were

20 attempts to create new municipalities, new cantons, and something like

21 that, so probably this formation of this Serbian municipality of Samac was

22 another attempt along these lines.

23 I did hear about it because the media did report that. It was no

24 secret. They reported that the Serbian municipality of Samac was formed,

25 that some bodies were formed, that the president of the assembly was

1 elected and so on but I didn't pay any particular attention to that. I

2 remember that an acquaintance of mine, a veterinarian, his wife worked

3 with me at the school for a long time, he was the president of the

4 municipality. Ilija Ristic, if you need for me to tell you his name, it

5 was Ilija Ristic

6 Q. And what did you hear about this man?

7 A. That he was the president of the assembly of the Serbian

8 municipality of Samac but he continued to work at the veterinarian centre,

9 the station, he continued to carry out the duties that he had been

10 carrying out until then.

11 Q. Did you hear about any other officials of this new municipality,

12 did you hear about the police, were there any stories about that?

13 A. I heard that Stevan Todorovic was appointed chief of that police,

14 the chief of police. I didn't attach an importance to that either because

15 he had already been the chief of this other police that was in Samac so

16 that was the police that was operating regularly. There was no other

17 police other than the police that was operating in Samac.

18 Q. Just one moment. I heard you say when you mentioned the name

19 Stevan Todorovic, a chief without the police?

20 A. Yes, that's right. He was a chief but he didn't have any police,

21 he didn't have a station, he didn't have the regular organs that the

22 police usually have -- has.

23 Q. And what was being talked about in town about him being appointed

24 chief of police, were there any comments?

25 A. Yes, there were comments because nobody was very happy about this

1 choice. Other people knew him much better than I did, some neighbours at

2 whose house he used to live as a student, a high school student, they

3 especially commented this as being a very unfortunate choice and they said

4 things to that effect.

5 Q. Was there any change sensed in the life in Samac after the

6 constituting of this new municipality, the declaration of this Serbian

7 municipality of Samac? Did you sense anything?

8 A. I said in the interview and I can repeat that again, that this

9 didn't have any effect on me, not me, but life in general in Samac. We

10 all continued to be citizens of that municipality, the municipality of

11 Samac. We all carried out our work and other duties in the municipality

12 of Samac. I went to the municipality to get certain decisions, I paid my

13 taxes, nothing substantially changed.

14 Q. During those first few months of 1992, where did your information

15 come from about the work of political parties? Earlier you mentioned that

16 you got information from television, but did you go to party meetings,

17 perhaps?

18 A. No, I did not attend any meetings, any party meetings, maybe I

19 went to one or possibly two. There was that movement for Yugoslavia, so

20 in those terms, I went to see what they were advocating. There was a

21 rally in front of the hotel and I think that those parties, I don't know

22 whether it was one party, but there were several parties which were in

23 favour of Yugoslavia, whether it was the Reformist Parties or the Reformed

24 Communist party, I don't remember, but I remember that quite a few

25 speakers at the time said things: Mesud Nogic, Marko Filipovic, that they

1 said a woman spoke on behalf of the trade unions, she was in the trade

2 union organisation at the time, and some other citizens also spoke.

3 If I'm not mistaken I think that Ibela Salkic also said something, Ibrahim

4 Salkic.

5 Q. Were you in favour of preserving Yugoslavia at the time? What

6 were your views concerning the developments at the time?

7 A. I've already told you that I had spent my entire life in

8 Yugoslavia and it wasn't easy for me to see it disintegrate. They --

9 there was mention of a rump Yugoslavia at the time and I was in favour of

10 even of that rump Yugoslavia, that was better than nothing. There were

11 even some arrangements or agreements made to that effect and they came

12 quite close to creating the rump Yugoslavia; however, the SDS -- the SDA

13 abandoned the idea at the very end and then other things happened.

14 Q. How did you learn that the SDA abandoned the idea, gave up on the

15 idea?

16 A. I learned that through the media. I wasn't involved in any of

17 this; however, I learned through the media that a party, I believe it was

18 called MBO, it was established by a Muslim intellectual Zulfi Karpasic who

19 lived in Switzerland, he set up that political party which had quite a lot

20 of influence among the Muslim nation, he advocated and was trying to talk

21 Alija Izetbegovic into accepting that concept. I believe that Alija even

22 agreed to this and attended -- no, I think it was Zulfi Karpasic who

23 attended negotiations concerning this; however, in the end all of that

24 fell through. I learned of this also through the media.

25 Q. That's all I needed to know, how did you learn about this?

1 Now I would like to turn to another topic. The following topic I

2 would like to discuss is the 4th detachment. I don't think that there is

3 any question about you having been a member of the 4th detachment. Now

4 please tell us, how and when did you become a member of the 4th Detachment

5 and what do you know about its creation?

6 A. The situation was quite tense at the time and the forces

7 attempting to preserve Yugoslavia used all kinds of approaches. One of

8 the approaches was the Yugoslav Peoples' Army which could have been the

9 force that could have implemented it and several things were done to

10 further that including the mobilisation of conscripts into the reserve

11 forces of the Yugoslav Peoples' Army. This is how the mobilisation came

12 about, the mobilisation of all citizens. Those who responded, those who

13 believed that that was the right solution and responded to the call-up and

14 were consequently mobilised.

15 Some citizens did not respond to the call-up for whatever reasons.

16 A number of Muslims were among them and the majority of Croats did not

17 respond to the call-up either. It hasn't been mentioned here that a large

18 number of Serbs failed to respond to mobilisation too. According to

19 something I learned of later, about 700 conscripts at the time deserted,

20 this is how we referred to it in popular terms, they left and went either

21 to Serbia or they went abroad, simply changed their place of residence, so

22 a number did not respond to the call-up but the majority did and this is

23 how I came to join the 4th Detachment.

24 MR. DI FAZIO: I'm sorry. I was about to object because it wasn't

25 clear at all to me from that answer that the witness, whether the witness

1 was talking generally or about specifically about what happened in

2 Bosanski Samac. I understand though from that last part of his answer

3 that he is confining his comments to events that he saw and observed and

4 experienced in Bosanski Samac.

5 A. My comments mostly pertain to Bosanski Samac.

6 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. But the number, the figure that you mentioned, 700, that strictly

8 pertains to Bosanski Samac; is that right?

9 A. I didn't mean the town of Samac itself, I meant the municipality

10 of Samac. I don't know how to define that geographic term. It's an

11 entity.

12 Q. My question was, when did you receive your call-up papers and what

13 happened following that?

14 A. As I have told you, that was in early 1992. Head of the

15 Secretariat for National Defence was my former student, Milos Bogdanovic,

16 a very nice man, and I believe that he and I were on very good terms. We

17 would always greet each other, exchange a few words and so on.

18 On one occasion, he called me and told me that I would be

19 mobilised and he suggested that due to certain circumstances, I should

20 accept a post involving logistics in the 4th Detachment and I accepted

21 that.

22 Q. Tell us, what was your position in the 4th Detachment?

23 A. It's already been said that I was assistant commander for

24 logistics.

25 Q. Can you tell us who appointed you to that position?

1 A. I never received any kind of appointment document appointing me

2 assistant commander but logically concluding I was appointed by commander

3 of the 17th Tactical Group which was a unit superior to the 4th

4 Detachment.

5 Q. What was the name of the commander of the 17th Tactical Group?

6 A. Commander was Stevan Nikolic.

7 Q. Was he an active officer?

8 A. He was an officer of the Yugoslav Peoples' Army, an active one.

9 It's already been mentioned but let me reiterate again that he, with other

10 officers, on the 19th of May left our area because he originally hailed

11 from Serbia.

12 Q. We've heard the names of other senior people in the 4th Detachment

13 already, we don't have to go into that, but I'm interested in something

14 else. Before the war, before joining the 4th Detachment, did you

15 socialise with Radovan Antic who we know to be the commander of the 4th

16 detachment?

17 A. I knew Radovan Antic quite well, however, we didn't socialise. We

18 weren't family friends or anything of the like but we knew each other

19 quite well. Before the war, he was head of the SUP for a while and that

20 drew us apart to a degree.

21 Q. Now tell us about Jovo Savic who we know to have been deputy

22 commander, did you socialise with him?

23 A. I am acquainted with Jovo Savic as well, he lived in my

24 neighbourhood, we didn't socialise but we knew each other as neighbours.

25 He would frequently come to my cafe, unlike Radovan Antic who never

1 stepped into my cafe.

2 Q. You've already described your relationship with Zaric. Now tell

3 us, what did you learn and from whom about your tasks in the 4th

4 Detachment. You've discussed this in your interview but we'd like you to

5 go into that again?

6 A. My immediate superior was Radovan Antic, therefore, he informed me

7 of all of my tasks. There was no chain of command whereby command of the

8 17th Tactical Group would issue orders to me. No, it wasn't like that. I

9 was immediately informed of this by him.

10 Q. And what did you do in the 4th Detachment?

11 A. There were no particular tasks and duties at the time. If there

12 was any meeting of the command, I would attend the meeting and see whether

13 there were any orders. Sometimes they would inform us of a problem or

14 similar things along those lines. I remember that once or twice, we went

15 to the range to shoot, meaning that the members of the 4th Detachment went

16 to the range to fire and my task was to secure a bus that was to take the

17 people there.

18 Q. Did you attend that fire practice?

19 A. Yes, I did on one occasion, but I believe I didn't go the second

20 time. It was held in the vicinity of Brcko where there was a military

21 facility, a military range that was a secure facility.

22 Q. Were you issued with a weapon in the 4th Detachment?

23 A. All of those who were members of the 4th Detachment were issued a

24 weapon by that formation as well as uniforms, based on availability. That

25 means, all of us who were members of that formation received weapons but

1 not all people received uniforms. The uniforms were the old Yugoslav-type

2 uniforms, SMB, olive-green uniforms. They were the same as the uniforms

3 of the Yugoslav Peoples' Army. And when I say formation weapons, I mean

4 that certain weapons were intended for certain units so I was assistant

5 commander for logistics. In my unit, I was entitled to a pistol, and

6 therefore, I was issued with a pistol that was typically issued to people

7 in such posts in the Yugoslav Peoples' Army. I think it was TP type 69 or

8 something similar to that. The soldiers were issued rifles, machine-guns

9 or I don't know how it was decided who should receive what.

10 Q. Who conducted the distribution of weapons?

11 A. The distribution of weapons was carried out by the logistics

12 service of the 17th Tactical Group. That was an organised unit of the

13 Yugoslav Peoples' Army which had all of the resource a unit of that nature

14 should have.

15 Q. Where were the headquarters of that logistics service?

16 A. In Pelagicevo.

17 Q. Did they give the weapons to you or to company commanders within

18 the detachment?

19 A. It depends. They would give it sometimes to me, I would sign a

20 receipt and since I never had any weapons before that, I was given a

21 receipt saying that this pistol had been issued to me and the pistol was

22 the property of the 17th Tactical Group and should somebody ask for, I was

23 supposed to show that receipt. And other people received formation

24 weapons and also signed a receipt for them so that they had a

25 justification, a legal basis for possession of weapons.

1 Q. And who gave weapons to them?

2 A. They would be issued with weapons either in Pelagicevo or they

3 would be given weapons directly by their immediate superior.

4 Q. Were you issued with a uniform?

5 A. I was issued with a uniform and a jacket, a winter-type jacket.

6 Q. Tell me, how frequent were the meetings that you attended? Let me

7 ask you first ask you something that was frequently mentioned here:

8 Where were the headquarters of the 4th Detachment command?

9 A. Before I answer this, I have to tell you that the 4th Detachment

10 operated publicly, transparently. It was no secret organisation which met

11 in dark corners and negotiated things or acted in that manner. It was a

12 publicly-promoted unit of the Yugoslav Peoples' Army and it had its HQ in

13 a place that was called Work Organisation Sit, Work Unit Mladost. This

14 Work Unit Mladost had an administrative building and in there, there was

15 several offices that were used by the 4th Detachment.

16 Q. Later on we'll take a look at the picture and comment upon this

17 further, but now please answer my previous question. How frequently did

18 you attend meetings in the command of the 4th Detachment starting in 1992?

19 A. The meetings were not frequent because there was no need to hold

20 them. They would usually be held as needed. For example, we had to have

21 a meeting before going to the shooting range and we had a meeting

22 regarding that. And then after the shooting range, we held a meeting to

23 analyse what had happened there. I remember also that there was several

24 public gatherings or rallies in the town of Samac. I'm now referring

25 strictly to the town of Samac because the 4th detachment operated only in

1 the town of Samac. I remember that several of those public gatherings

2 were held at which members of the 4th detachment spoke informing both the

3 members of the 4th detachment and those who were non-members as well as

4 those who attended the gatherings because those gatherings were public. I

5 remember that one was held in the memorial hall. I believe that I didn't

6 attend that one whereas another gathering was held at the Tekstilac

7 factory. I was there as an observer listening to the people who spoke

8 there. So that was no secret.

9 And to go back to your question, the meeting were -- the meetings

10 were held when there was a need for them. And they probably weren't more

11 frequent than once or twice a month, but since the headquarters of the 4th

12 Detachment were immediately next to my house, actually across the street

13 from my house, I went there often. I would just go there, sit down, have

14 some coffee with the people, chat, or invite them over to my place for

15 coffee. This was nothing unusual.

16 Q. I asked you about your relationship with the leaders of the 4th

17 Detachment. Did you meet Stevan Nikolic?

18 A. Yes, I met Stevan Nikolic.

19 Q. Maybe you can bring your chair a little bit closer. If you need a

20 break, Mr. Tadic, just tell us?

21 A. No, no, I don't need a break, but the chair is very uncomfortable.

22 Q. So you met him. How frequently did you see him in that period?

23 A. I met him at one of the meetings of the 4th Detachment when he

24 would come and I would see him from time to time when meetings were

25 scheduled. He didn't often come to meetings of the 4th Detachment because

1 he was a commander maybe. I don't know how many detachments there were,

2 there were at least 15, so if he constantly toured all of those

3 detachments, then he would have to go to one or the other detachment

4 practically every other day so there was no need for me to see him every

5 other day. When he came, then I would see him when he would come to this

6 meeting or for other talks and so on.

7 MR. DI FAZIO: Just in order to follow the evidence clearly, is

8 the witness saying there were 15 detachments within the 17th Tactical

9 Group? That's what I understood him to be saying and I'd just like to be

10 clear about that and I think the Chamber should be clear about that as

11 well.

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I said perhaps 15 because here in

13 this court, we talked about the detachment that were in the Samac

14 municipality, but the area of responsibility of the 17th Tactical Group

15 was much broader. There was Pelagicevo, Brkco, Orasje and I don't know

16 what other locations were within the zone of the 17th Tactical Group so it

17 wasn't just Samac, it was much broader. But I don't know how many

18 detachments there were in each municipality.

19 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. But I assume that you know how many detachments there were in the

21 Samac area?

22 A. In the area of Samac, there were four or five detachments. Some

23 documents or some places mention four and some mention five detachments.

24 Q. Did you know those who headed the other detachments in the Samac

25 territory?

1 A. I knew them but not especially.

2 Q. Did Colonel Nikolic come to your cafe to the AS cafe?

3 A. No, he didn't because at that time, and I have to say that here,

4 the active personnel of the Yugoslav Peoples' Army was something -- or the

5 arrival of the active personnel of the Yugoslav Peoples' Army was an

6 irritant to the population so because of my cafe and because of myself, he

7 avoided doing that.

8 Q. Your son, also called Miroslav, was he a member of the 4th

9 Detachment?

10 A. Yes, my son, even though he's a reserve officer, was just a

11 regular soldier in the 4th Detachment.

12 Q. This was also often mentioned here, but I have to ask you about

13 that also, what was the ethnic composition of the 4th Detachment?

14 A. In the beginning, I said that mobilisation documents were sent to

15 everybody and those who responded were members of the 4th Detachment and a

16 lot of Serbs responded, a lot of Muslims and a lot of Croats. The fewest

17 of those were the Croats because there was the fewest Croats in the actual

18 town of Samac themselves. There were more Muslims and then there were

19 even more Serbs. I don't know exactly what the percentages were but I

20 believe that they were discussed here.

21 Q. Those meetings and those public rallies during which the 4th

22 Detachment was mentioned, according to your knowledge, what was the

23 purpose of the 4th Detachment?

24 A. The purpose of the 4th Detachment, as part of the JNA, was the

25 protection of the constitutional order at the time of that state, and if

1 you applied that to the 4th Detachment, then that would mean protection

2 from infiltration by some unknown forces into our territory because we

3 were immediately next to a state where there was a war.

4 Q. Did you have information about an attack on the town or was there

5 talk about an imminent attack on the town? Was such an attack to be

6 expected?

7 A. The town could have been attacked only from the Republic of

8 Croatia across the bridge, the only bridge over the Sava River that was

9 still standing, or possibly an attack could come from our western side

10 across the River Bosna which was less probable but still possible because

11 a large number of villages on that side border on Croatia and their ethnic

12 composition was such, and it wasn't very difficult to cross the Sava with

13 the appropriate technical means.

14 In Samac, we could hear from our houses the movements of units, we

15 could hear tanks or a vehicle or a group of vehicles when such vehicles

16 were moving, you could hear that across the water. We could hear it very

17 well and probably the people on the other side could hear if something was

18 going on on our side, and usually if there was a movement of tanks, if

19 there were five or six tanks moving, you could hear that. My house -- and

20 we will see that later when I talk about that -- was positioned in such a

21 way that from the balcony of my house, I could see a large part of

22 Slavonija and that would be in the area of the so-called Sljuncara that

23 was a part where they extracted gravel from the river so there was some

24 cranes and other equipment there.

25 Q. Do you have any information about the village of Prud which you

1 mentioned -- well, you didn't mention it but that village is on the other

2 side of the River Bosna on the other end of the bridge, we know that from

3 before. Were there any special forces there?

4 A. I had a lot of acquaintances in Prud even friends. My brother is

5 married to a woman from Prud so I was in Prud quite frequently and I had a

6 large number of acquaintances there, and on one occasion a friend of mine

7 from Prud told me -- this friend actually cut timber, and he told me that

8 about 30 young men had arrived in Prud who were to cut timber, but later

9 it turned out that they were actually instructors who had come there to

10 Prud to possibly train members of those units, units that were to be

11 formed in Prud.

12 So those members later at checkpoints -- because later it turned

13 out that they stood watch at checkpoints along with the members of the

14 population. I would frequently pass by that way and always somebody from

15 Prud, one of the citizens from Prud was always there so I didn't have any

16 problems. Sometimes they would check the trunk of my car to see if I

17 didn't have any weapons or anything like that but they would usually allow

18 me to pass through in contrast to others who did have some unpleasant

19 encounters with those people. The situation was similar in the area of

20 Samac. In the same way before the hostilities would break out in all

21 villages, regardless of whether they were Croat or Serb, some kind of

22 control was set up and everybody felt it was their right to monitor the

23 others or those who were passing through. This was not a nice practice.

24 There were not too many incidents on the -- on those roads. I never had

25 anything happen to me, but others did. But it was a very uncomfortable

1 situation because it was still peacetime. It was uncomfortable to have

2 incidents like this happen.

3 Q. I just want to go back to the 4th Detachment again, to the

4 command, your command. The meetings that you attended, were you tasked

5 with what you would do specifically should an attack take place, did you

6 receive any instructions about that?

7 A. I specifically didn't have any particular task. If it did exist,

8 it was probably something that the commander had and it was under seal.

9 I'm not a military expert, but I think that the usual procedure is that

10 the orders are kept by the commander and if the situation calls for it, he

11 opens those instructions up and sees what the tasks are or he receives the

12 tasks from the commander at a given time.

13 I personally didn't have any nor did I know --

14 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, Mr. Di Fazio.

15 MR. DI FAZIO: I certainly have no objection to the latter part of

16 the answer, but the witness there seems to me is purely speculating.

17 Mr. Lukic's question was, with respect, quite clear. He asked: Did

18 you -- were you tasked about what you should specifically do should an

19 attack take place? Now, the witness can say yes or no but can't speculate

20 as to whether commanders had sealed off or had sealed instructions.

21 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, Mr. Lukic, the witness should discuss what

22 actually happened, and what he did, and what he knows.

23 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

24 Q. Mr. Tadic --

25 A. I think that I clearly said that I personally didn't have any

1 task. I don't know whether that was recorded.

2 Q. Yes. It was recorded, but then you said "probably the commander,"

3 but we won't discuss the -- did you personally?

4 A. No, I didn't personally and I said that.

5 MR. DI FAZIO: And if Your Honours please, I take it from that

6 answer that therefore the witness is saying, and Mr. Lukic may care could

7 clarify this, that the 4th Detachment had no specific instructions as to

8 what to do, publicly known, that is known amongst the members of the 4th

9 Detachment of instructions of what to do in the event of an attack, no one

10 knew what to do.

11 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] I think that this is perhaps a topic

12 for cross-examination.

13 Q. My question was: Did you have any instructions and now I'm asking

14 you, which is also something that interests the Prosecutor, did other

15 members of the 4th Detachment know what to do if there should be an

16 attack? Did you know anything personally about that?

17 A. I just answered this question in my answer that the tasks are not

18 given in advance in the army to anybody to say, well, you have such and

19 such an assignment if such and such a thing should happen. Such

20 instructions are not given in the army.

21 If something happened, the commander had that and he didn't carry

22 that in his pocket. It was placed, stored, somewhere.

23 Q. There is another topic that was -- that related to that period.

24 Did you hear anything about the arrival of the men to the village of

25 Batkusa and what is your knowledge about that?

1 A. Also from stories that circulated, which is inevitable in

2 situations like that, especially when two helicopters land in a small

3 village, everybody knows about it and everybody talks about it, so based

4 on those stories I knew that I think two helicopters landed in the village

5 of Batkusa and some people arrived in those helicopters. At the time, I

6 didn't know anything more detailed about that. Now at this time I know

7 much more.

8 Q. The Chamber is interested about what you know at the time so we

9 will stick to that, not to what you found out later. Did you know at the

10 time where those people came from?

11 A. I knew then that these people came from Yugoslavia because

12 everybody said that those helicopters were helicopters of the Yugoslav

13 Peoples' Army.

14 Q. The 4th Detachment in your command, did -- was anything said about

15 those people in connection with their arrival?

16 A. Yes. There was talk that they arrived. We were informed that

17 they arrived. We were told about it at a meeting in the office. I don't

18 think that it was an official meeting, but we were just told that they had

19 arrived and I think that the commander said that they will not be coming

20 to Samac and that they will not have any contact with the 4th Detachment.

21 I think that that was what was said, that they will not have any contact

22 with the 4th Detachment because the 4th detachment is of the composition

23 that we had already talked about and this is something that didn't suit

24 them.

25 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Excuse me, Mr. Lukic.

1 Mr. Tadic, when you say that the people who came on the two

2 helicopters came from Yugoslavia, which part of Yugoslavia, could you be

3 specific?

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You mean geographically?

5 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Yes. Well not from Serbia, from

6 Bosnia-Herzegovina, from the different republics of the former Yugoslavia,

7 something of that nature.

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] From Serbia.

9 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Thank you very much.

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] When I said from Yugoslavia, I

11 believed it to be the Yugoslavia.

12 JUDGE WILLIAMS: I understood that, but just for the sake of

13 clarity.

14 JUDGE MUMBA: I just want to ask the witness, about when was that

15 when they arrived, according to your knowledge?

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I could tell you now that it was on

17 the 11th of April, 1992, but this is something that I learned about later

18 but at the time, the general notion that it was in early April, around

19 that time.

20 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. Mr. Tadic, we know the names of many of the people whom we will

22 mention later, but some of those specials from Serbia, have you ever met

23 them after the break out of the conflict?

24 A. You mean after?

25 Q. Yes, yes, after. Just tell me yes or no because we will come back

1 to that later?

2 A. Before the 17th of April, I did not have occasion to come across

3 them and after the 17th of April, I had a number of unpleasant encounters.

4 Q. You have you already gave me an answer to what I was going to ask

5 you. When you saw them after the 17th of April, did you remember ever

6 seeing some of them in your Cafe AS?

7 A. No, I can assure you that none of them had ever stepped into Cafe

8 AS before the 17th and I had never seen any of them in Samac before the

9 17th.

10 Q. I would like now to turn to your Cafe AS which has been mentioned

11 a great deal in this trial. Although this can be found in your interview,

12 let us repeat this here before the Trial Chamber. When did you open your

13 Cafe AS?

14 A. Perhaps later on, I will have an opportunity to elaborate on how I

15 stopped being a teacher and became a caterer.

16 Q. Well, maybe this is the right time to say -- to explain that in a

17 few words only.

18 A. One of the witnesses here before this Trial Chamber already

19 mentioned this and said that the Cafe AS had been confiscated from me, the

20 premises in which Cafe AS are located. That was sometime in the 1970s.

21 At the time, those who enriched themselves were subject to persecution and

22 a law from 1949 was invoked. According to that law, an individual could

23 not own premises larger than 76 square metres. In the meantime, I had

24 obtained a permit from the municipality. I attached the draft, the

25 building construction draft and so on, and I built this facility which had

1 83 square metres.

2 The authorities in Samac measured the facility and said that I

3 could not own the premises as such, and they confiscated it from me

4 without paying any compensation to me. The decision was adopted in 1974

5 or 1975, the decision concerning this.

6 At that time, approximately, I met the uncle of Izet Izetbegovic

7 and since he was a judge and we had some kind of administrative court and

8 he was a judge of the administrative court and therefore, I petitioned the

9 administrative court regarding this; however, it was to no avail. We even

10 wrote to Tito at the time.

11 JUDGE MUMBA: Can we move to the events that matter, we don't want

12 the details which are quite unrelated to this.

13 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] I agree.

14 Q. This issue might be important for an incident that took place

15 later on but we don't have to go into this. Please tell us, briefly, so

16 you opened a shop following that, and tell us, when was this shop closed?

17 A. After all of these difficulties, the premises were returned to me

18 under the condition that I was not allowed to sell it or lease it but

19 rather only to run the premises myself and this is how I stopped working

20 in the school and opened a shop. I opened a shop in 1983, both my wife

21 and I stopped working and started operating this shop which we ran up

22 until 1986 or 1987 and after that I closed the shop and opened the cafe

23 and this cafe operates now a days as well.

24 I simply wanted to give an explanation how it all came out.

25 Q. Well, you needn't have gone into all those details. So the cafe

1 was opened in 1987. Let us take a look at the photograph first and then

2 you can explain it to us.

3 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Could the witness please be shown

4 photograph D2/3.

5 Q. Mr. Tadic, could you please describe this photograph to us? What

6 important things can we see in this street this is Edvard Kardelj Street?

7 A. Yes it was called Edvard Kardelj Street before now it's called

8 Cara Dusana Street and this direction here leads to Modrica whereas the

9 town itself is on the opposite side. This facility here is my house.

10 From this angle, one cannot see the cafe because this here is grapevine

11 covering the front garden and behind this yellow fence is where the garden

12 is, the cafe garden, the open area where we keep tables in summertime.

13 Right next to this bicycle is a small gate, this part here. I

14 hope we shall see another photograph later on. So this small gate shows

15 the entrance into my house and this was explained yesterday. So through

16 this small gate, one enters the house in which I live and then this larger

17 gate further on is where you enter the cafe premises. So these are two

18 completely separate premises that have nothing in common except for the

19 foundations. And this building here across the street is the work unit

20 Mladost, a part of the Sit Factory, this is where the kitchen is belonging

21 to the Mladost work unit and these upper two windows is where the premises

22 of the 4th Detachment were. These two windows here.

23 Between these two buildings is a passage, some 8 metres wide, and

24 behind that, there are flag posts there. On holidays, state-owned

25 companies had to raise flags, and this is where flag posts were where

1 flags were flying. One couldn't see these flag posts because they were

2 inside in the passage, but if one paid attention, one could see the flags

3 flying on flag posts.

4 The kiosk there, I'm showing it right now, is the kiosk owned by

5 two guys who will later on come to be mentioned as detainees in this case.

6 So this is a kiosk, a green grocer kiosk that they ran.

7 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, perhaps it would be wise

8 to have the witness indicate all of these places with a number rather than

9 describing all of that for the record. Perhaps it would be easier if he

10 put a number next to each house or would you rather have me describe it

11 for the record?

12 JUDGE MUMBA: Perhaps the numbers would be much better.

13 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. Could you please put number one next to the place where the

15 entrance into your house is -- oh, no, put rather number 1 next to your

16 house.

17 A. [Marks]

18 Q. Where is the entrance leading into your house, put number 2

19 there?

20 A. [Marks]

21 Q. And entrance into the garden of your cafe, put a number 3

22 there?

23 A. [Marks]

24 Q. Perhaps it would be better if you drew arrows on the sidewalk so

25 that this can be clear.

1 A. No, it's quite clear on the photograph as it is.

2 Q. All right. Then put number 4 on the windows of the 4th Detachment

3 command?

4 A. [Marks]

5 Q. Put 5 where the flag posts were.

6 A. [Marks]

7 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Do we need to now describe it for the

8 record and enumerate all of these places or is this clear as it is?

9 JUDGE MUMBA: I think it's clear because he is following your

10 description.

11 MR. DI FAZIO: The only other thing, I think, Your Honour, was the

12 kiosk. I don't think that's been pointed out.

13 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes.

14 MR. DI FAZIO: The witness spoke about the kiosk and you can see

15 it in the photograph and there's no number on the photograph so I thought

16 for the sake of completeness we should put a number there to make all of

17 his evidence understandable.

18 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes.

19 MR. LUKIC: Thank you Mr. Usher.

20 THE WITNESS: I put it on.

21 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I have another

22 photograph here which that was given to me by the accused today. I

23 believe it is a much better photograph and it would be good to show the

24 photograph as well. We could scan it tomorrow and have it admitted into

25 evidence because it depicts quite well the issue that we discussed

1 yesterday, the entrance into the cafe AS. I have told the Prosecutor

2 before we started the hearing today that this photograph could be quite

3 useful to us and I know that it can be enlarged by the technical booth so

4 I don't know, should we show it now or leave it for tomorrow or rather for

5 Monday and enlarge it by then?

6 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, I think when you've completed the business you

7 want to do with it, like enlarging it, also giving copies to the

8 Prosecution so we can have it later.

9 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. Mr. Tadic, could you please describe Cafe AS to us? What did the

11 premises look like, and if necessary, we could also draw a sketch, but for

12 the time being, could you describe it for us first?

13 A. Cafe AS has a bit more than 80 square metres and it consists of

14 three parts, so to speak. Could I please be given a piece of paper so

15 that I can sketch it? It would be clearer if I drew a sketch.

16 The front room --

17 Q. Yes, I think that's a good idea.

18 A. So this is where one would enter the front office.

19 Q. Put a number 1 next to it?

20 A. All right, I did. Then number 2 would be the bar. And right

21 here, there's an opening, it's not a door just an opening through which

22 one gets into the next room which is a bit smaller. And then right here

23 in this area, there's a staircase leading to the basement which is about

24 this size. So number 5 would be the basement. It's about four by four

25 metres. And then number 6 is the bathroom.

1 This front area is where there was a television and then the

2 tables and chairs are along the wall and then in the middle is the pool

3 table. So the people who sit in the front room, they sit at these chairs

4 that are lined up against the wall and then people shooting pool would be

5 around the table and those who watch TV would be in this area here.

6 Now, in this other part, there are four tables, four tables which

7 were used by people who wanted to have a more intimate atmosphere, have a

8 drink, play cards or something like that. And here, in the basement area,

9 in the lower area, there were two more tables. That's more or less what

10 it was like.

11 This part here was taken from this area here because the stairs

12 there lead upstairs to my apartment so those two parts are not connected.

13 The entrance here is the entrance to my apartment so when I would be going

14 into my apartment, I would go inside here, I would climb up the stairs and

15 go to my apartment. This -- these premises here have nothing to do with

16 the upstairs part. If you wanted to go to the upstairs part, you have to

17 come out here and go upstairs here through this entrance.

18 If I wanted to go to the cafe from my apartment, I would come out

19 this way, come outside, come around here, and enter the cafe.

20 Q. Was there a door between this large room and the room marked with

21 the number 4?

22 A. This number 3 indicates just a passage. There is no door between

23 those two rooms so it's just a passage way. You cannot close it or

24 lock it because there is no door. Also, there is no door either to go

25 downstairs. Anyone who comes in here can go also downstairs because there

1 is no door.

2 Q. Was there any other way to enter that downstairs room other than

3 from that room marked with number 4?

4 A. No. There was no way to enter this room other than through the

5 entrance marked by an arrow. There are two small windows here, very small

6 windows, maybe 50 by 70 size, and they were from reinforced glass so you

7 cannot see through the glass if you're inside looking outside, nor can you

8 see from the outside inside the room through the glass.

9 Q. Was the shelter there during the war?

10 A. Yes, precisely. When I talk about the civilian protection, I will

11 probably talk about the shelter. Here, in front of my house, there is a

12 fence. We saw that on the photograph and here is the entrance to my house

13 and here is the entrance to the cafe. There was a tree here and there was

14 an arrow on that tree, a large arrow that had the word shelter written on

15 it and later I will talk about all this.

16 Anyway, it said shelter on that arrow and anybody who was nearby

17 when the shelling started -- there is a bus station here in front of my

18 house here by this door going in one direction and then across the street

19 near the kiosk is the other bus stop which goes -- which is for buses

20 going from Samac to the villages. So it's only the transportation to the

21 villages around Samac.

22 Q. We will talk about that later but this arrow, can you please mark

23 it with the number 7. Could you indicate the entrance to your house

24 with the number 8?

25 A. So all of those people who happened to be around here, whether

1 they are at the bus stop or thereabouts, would run into the cafe. If the

2 shelling was more intense, then they would run into this room marked with

3 the number 4 because it was more sheltered, there were no windows along

4 this wall so it was more protected here. But for those who were very

5 afraid, they, then, could go downstairs to the room marked 5 and then they

6 could spend the time there.

7 Q. I think that we can tender this floor plan into evidence. Is it

8 necessary to describe what it all means? Perhaps it would be clearer if I

9 explained what is marked by what number.

10 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes. Can we just have marked the pool table. Can

11 we have that marked.

12 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. Would you mark that please with the number 9?

14 A. Number 1. Yes, can I say it, because I can find it much easier to

15 get around.

16 Q. Yes, but as long as you do it a little faster?

17 A. Number 1 is the entrance to the Cafe AS; number 2 is the bar;

18 number 3 is the passage from the first room into the second room; number 4

19 is the second room; number 5, the cellar; number 6, toilet; number 7, sign

20 indicating the shelter; number 8, entrance to the apartment; and number 9

21 is the pool table.

22 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Could this document now -- this

23 exhibit now be given a number, please?

24 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes.

25 THE REGISTRAR: This document is D144/3.

1 JUDGE MUMBA: And what title do we give it, Mr. Lukic?

2 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] That is a sketch of the AS Cafe.

3 Q. And now, Mr. Tadic, we will talk about the AS Cafe, but all the

4 questions will be relating to the relevant period, that is the year 1991

5 and the first few months of 1992.

6 What were the work hours of the cafe, please?

7 A. The cafe was open from -- well, it was actually open nonstop, as

8 they say, and that's how it was mostly.

9 Q. So can we conclude, I do not want to suggest anything, but can we

10 say that for as long as anybody was sitting inside, anybody else could

11 come in and enter the cafe?

12 A. Yes, that's right.

13 Q. We heard a lot of testimony here that a lot of cards were played

14 in the cafe before the war. Was there any card playing and what kind of

15 cards were played?

16 A. Before the war and during the war and even now, after the war,

17 card games are played in the cafe and this is not the only cafe in Samac

18 where you can play cards. Perhaps the name is wrong, a cafe, actually, my

19 place is not a cafe really but it's called that because it's the easiest

20 name to give it, but it's actually not a cafe.

21 Q. And how would you define it?

22 A. In my permit, work permit, it's called a snack bar, that's how

23 it's been described ever since it was opened.

24 Q. Was there any gambling there or was it just card games the way

25 witnesses described it as part of a social interaction?

1 A. Well, there were other entertainments too. In our law, it states

2 that gambling is not prohibited unless it's a business. If it's a

3 business, then it's illegal, it's prohibited so --

4 Q. Was it usual in Samac for people to play cards in restaurants and

5 cafes?

6 A. In several cafes, yes. There was a socially-owned place we called

7 it a Dascara, and it was part of a hotel, and that's where card games were

8 also played all day and late into the night.

9 Q. I've already asked you whether the officers from the 4th

10 Detachment dropped by and you answered my question. Did members of the

11 4th Detachment stop by at your cafe and did anybody come bearing arms,

12 were there any soldiers there?

13 A. We've already said that members of the 4th Detachment were armed

14 but they were not allowed to carry the weapons around town. They were

15 used only in case there was a mobilisation or if they were going somewhere

16 on assignment. So the weapons were not meant to be carried around, nor

17 was the uniform of dress uniform, something that you could parade around

18 in. They were requisites which you could use only certain circumstances

19 so nobody came to the AS in uniform or with weapons.

20 As far as visits to my place, everybody came. I didn't even have

21 to know out of 500 people who were the members of the 4th Detachment.

22 Those whom I knew very well, I knew that they were in the 4th Detachment,

23 I knew those people -- some people I knew very well and I knew that they

24 were not in the 4th Detachment, but these things never bothered anyone.

25 Q. I'm asking you about the period immediately prior to the outbreak

1 of the conflict on the 16th of April. During those days in March and

2 April, did all ethnic groups come to your cafe?

3 A. Until the 16th of April, the day of the 16th of April, everybody

4 would come to my cafe. There was one of the Dragicevics who played cards

5 in my cafe, even the person mentioned here Truman, the two of them

6 actually played cards and this is something that this Dragicevic told me

7 about later.

8 During the war, AS was one of the safest places and anybody who

9 wanted to could come here and this is the situation to this very day.

10 Q. Did any prominent people come to your cafe as well, people

11 prominent in the political life, people who were of Croat or Muslim

12 ethnicity, did they also come to your cafe?

13 A. The prominent politicians at that time were not prominent before

14 that period so at the time, they were in the multi-party elections so it

15 turned out that they were prominent people, but all the people who were

16 mentioned mostly did frequent the cafe. Some came more often and some did

17 not and some never came at all such as, for example, Sulejman Tihic,

18 Dragan Lukac already mentioned here, but many of the witnesses who were

19 here were even regular patrons and they came very often. There is no need

20 to mention them because they, themselves, have stated here that they used

21 to come to the cafe.

22 Q. Do you remember the episode told by Salkic about your son

23 preventing an incident involving him; do you remember that?

24 A. I remember Ibrahim talking about it. I was very -- I was on very

25 good terms with that family, the Salkic family to this very day, but I

1 wasn't there at the time when this happened. My son told me about it

2 later and I have no doubt that it happened the way he said but the

3 practice was that if I wasn't there, my son was there.

4 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Is it time for a break now, Your

5 Honours?

6 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, we will continue at 1805 hours.

7 --- Recess taken at 5.45 p.m.

8 --- On resuming at 6.05 p.m.

9 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, Mr. Lukic. Can we stop the witness 15 minutes

10 before time so that we deal with other matters which I've been informed

11 about.

12 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. Do you know, do you remember among the guests in your cafe, were

14 there any policemen and what was the ethnicity of those policemen, if they

15 came?

16 A. The cafe, I call it that, just like everybody else does, everybody

17 came to the Cafe AS, policemen were frequent guests at any time of the day

18 or night. Frequently they were in uniform and very often they were also

19 in civilian clothes. One of them who I remember with pleasure was killed,

20 unfortunately. His name was Lugar Gregurevic and he would come to the

21 cafe practically every day, Mijo Ljoljic, Savo Cancarevic, Simo Krunic and

22 many others, many others.

23 MR. LAZAREVIC: A small assistance. I see here in the transcript

24 on page 67, line 25, it says Lugar Gregurevic and because we know that

25 this nickname is connected to another person. Maybe it would be good to

1 make this --

2 JUDGE MUMBA: Clarify who this person is.

3 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. The person who killed him is mentioned, what is the name of the

5 policeman who came to the cafe often?

6 A. The name of the police officer is Luka Gregurevic.

7 Q. What is his ethnicity?

8 A. A Croat.

9 Q. When was he killed?

10 A. In early May 1992.

11 Q. What do you know about his killing, who killed him?

12 A. He was killed in the -- in a place called Crkvina, something that

13 is talked about a lot here in the warehouse where the infamous crime was

14 committed by Lugar.

15 Q. You said that you were good friends?

16 A. Yes, that's true.

17 Q. There are some other names here. You mentioned Savo Cancarevic,

18 police officer, Simo Krunic, and Mijo Ljoljic?

19 A. Mijo Ljoljic.

20 Q. Is he also a Croat?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. I don't want to move into a private session, but the witness

23 Fitozevic mentioned in private session four names so if it's necessary,

24 maybe we could go into private session for just a moment?

25 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, we can move into private session.

1 [Private session]

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6 [Open session]

7 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Were there any Yugoslav insignia in the Cafe AS?

9 A. Yes. In the other part of the premises that I've already shown, I

10 believe it's marked with number 4, there was a large photograph of Tito

11 there, 80 by 50 centimetres and it stayed there all the way up until

12 mid-May. It hung there until May and on one occasion, I had to remove it

13 promptly and I will probably be given an opportunity to explain why.

14 Q. We'll get to that later. I would like to stay with the Cafe AS

15 although turn to a different period of time. Can you tell us whether Cafe

16 AS operated during the war, starting on April 16th and throughout 1992 and

17 1993?

18 A. Cafe AS did work during the war when it was possible, when it was

19 permitted. It was quite active from the second half of 1992. I think

20 that other cafes were open during that time and it was operating quite

21 actively after that so from mid-1992 and on, until the end of the war. It

22 is obvious that permits were needed in order to reopen cafes and although

23 we had a continuity, we still had to obtain a permit from the municipality

24 to reopen the cafe. I was given such permit to continue the operation of

25 the cafe.

1 However, I have to point out something peculiar about Cafe AS. At

2 the time when the war started, there was no communication with Odzak

3 municipality. My entire family lived there, as did relatives of many of

4 my friends, acquaintances and relatives who were not in the area so that

5 all of them would gather in Samac, not all at the same time, obviously,

6 but occasionally, every couple of days or so, they would come and gather

7 in large numbers since they had no accommodations, since they didn't know

8 anybody in Samac who would be closer to them than me, then they would

9 gather in my cafe. They had no accommodation in Samac and therefore, we

10 put up sponge mattresses in the lower part of the cafes -- of my cafe and

11 in the other part of the cafe and some 20 of them or more would sleep

12 there. We also provided blankets for them. Some of them slept upstairs

13 in the rooms that were not used by me, the rooms that were used by my son

14 and some of them slept in the cafe.

15 So the cafe was not operating, so to speak, however, it wasn't

16 shut down either, people were simply housed there, if I can say so.

17 Q. But you didn't run it as a catering establishment?

18 A. No, no. While there was still some juices there left and other

19 drinks, they used it up and since supplies were not refurbished, there was

20 nothing there else to consume.

21 Q. I don't think there is a need to put an exhibit before you, but

22 can you tell us whether there was a ban on liquor sale or do you think

23 there is a need for the exhibit to be put on ELMO?

24 A. No, there is no need for that. There was a ban on liquor sale;

25 however, it wasn't efficient. It didn't bring about the desired outcome.

1 Bootlegging was rampant just like in any war. One could obtain a certain

2 kind of brandy called Ludara [phoen]. It was brought in from Serbia and

3 it wasn't of good quality, it wasn't expensive but it was very unhealthy.

4 So it wasn't impossible to get drunk.

5 Q. Can you just tell us what does this term Ludara mean, why was this

6 brandy called that way?

7 A. Because even small quantities of it would drive a man crazy let

8 alone large quantities of it.

9 Q. And where was this brandy sold, and alcohol in general?

10 A. It was sold in secrecy in the marketplaces and elsewhere.

11 Q. One more question and we will complete the Cafe AS topic. In

12 addition to providing accommodation to people from Odzak, did you also put

13 up some other people in your house and, if so, whom?

14 A. A large number of people, mostly from Odzak municipality went

15 through my house and my cafe. Some women with young children who had come

16 through an exchange, I believe it was on the 4th or 5th of July, stayed

17 there for some ten days before finding another accommodation. There was a

18 woman there who was a relative of my wife's and her friend who had been

19 exchanged while their husbands remained in prison there. There was some

20 other people as well. My uncle was there for a while and some other

21 people.

22 Q. What about Muslims?

23 A. At the very beginning, as early as April, perhaps on the 18th or

24 19th of April, a car stopped in front of my house and I just happened to

25 be downstairs and I saw a fellow citizen of mine, his name was Rizo Dzakic

1 and he worked in the city waste disposal company and his wife was with him

2 and I asked them, "What are you doing?" And they told me,"Well, can't you

3 see what the situation is like? We're fleeing into Modrica." And then I

4 asked them, "Well who can guarantee to you that the same won't happen in

5 Modrica tomorrow?" And they said, "We don't know." And I asked them

6 "Well, why are you going then?" And they said, "Well, we are afraid,"

7 and I told them, "Well, if you are afraid, why don't you come in and stay

8 with me." I knew Izeta well. They were about ten years older than me and

9 they were not really in any shape to travel so I told them, "Why don't you

10 stay with me until the situation calms down," and they agreed.

11 So they came upstairs to my apartment and Rizo and my wife spent

12 the entire 15, 20 days or a month sitting in the corridor and smoking.

13 That was the safest place as there was no windows there. They cooked some

14 food for themselves there and spent 15 to 20 days there. Then they went

15 back to their own apartment and remained in Samac throughout the war.

16 Their son also remained in Samac. He had a work obligation he had

17 to discharge. Their daughter-in-law remained there as well throughout the

18 war and is still there to this day. She has a shop in Samac. Rizo died

19 some time in 1996 during the war.

20 Q. We don't have to go into that.

21 Mr. Tadic, please tell us, what happened, what did you hear, what

22 did you see during the night between the 16th and 17th of April, 1992?

23 Start with the evening, please.

24 A. On the 16th of April, as I have mentioned, my cafe was open, my

25 cafe, as I said, was open as usual. There was no tension, nothing

1 unusual. It was mostly middle-aged people who came. Young people

2 sometimes came and shot pool, but mostly it was the middle-aged people and

3 elderly who came. And on that evening there were many people there, my

4 acquaintances, friends, Serbs, Croats, the Muslims, they played cards,

5 shot pool, some people left earlier and some of them remained until late

6 that night.

7 We were there until that time at about 2.30 when we heard the

8 shooting. Since we were locals, we could tell that the shooting was

9 coming from the direction of the bridge. People got up promptly and went

10 home. Those who had cars went in their cars. Those who lived nearby

11 walked and some people who lived quite a way remained there.

12 I remember two guys, one of them had a house about a kilometre and

13 a half from Samac and the other one lived at about the same distance and

14 they were sons of a friend of mine. I told them, "You better not go

15 anywhere. God knows whom you might encounter. You'd better go upstairs

16 and stay in my son's room until it dawns." And that's how it happened.

17 We locked up the cafe and all of us went upstairs. My wife and I stayed

18 on the first floor which is where we normally live and they were on the

19 second floor where my son normally lives.

20 Naturally, nobody could fall asleep. We sat there drinking

21 coffee, trying to make phone calls. The phones were not working and the

22 shooting spread to the other part of town; however, it wasn't intense.

23 This is how we were when it dawned. The men were upstairs, these guys

24 were upstairs and I went upstairs and as I have already told you from my

25 balcony, one could see quite a lot. The view was good. And at that time,

1 they started shooting at my house from the direction of the health care

2 centre. The balcony was somewhat sheltered. It had an elevated part so

3 it sheltered us and they didn't hit us but some ten bullets hit the door

4 and broke the window pane so I would say that some 30 to 40 bullets had

5 been fired.

6 I managed to get a hold of a broom and since we had a rope for

7 hanging laundry there, I managed to use the broom and to raise a white

8 garment high up in the air and after that, they stopped shooting.

9 We looked out carefully and saw that there was no shooting anymore

10 and then we saw a commotion in front of the health care centre. We saw

11 some seven to eight soldiers there, this is about 150 metres from my

12 house. I don't think it's more than that. We saw soldiers, but they

13 didn't do anything and they didn't head towards our house, but rather went

14 to a side street leading to downtown.

15 Q. During the 17th of April, the following day, did you leave your

16 house?

17 A. I didn't go anywhere. Since the command was right across the

18 road, I didn't even have to make a phone call, I could just yell out and I

19 saw a soldier on duty there downstairs so I could even speak to him

20 directly. However, regardless of that, I called them on the phone and

21 somebody told me that Radovan, the commander, had gone to Pelagicevo and

22 that he hadn't said anything regarding the activity. So they told me that

23 I'd better stay at home and that's what I did I stayed at home. And then

24 later on, when Radovan came back, I called him up again and he told me:

25 "There is no need for you to come, I'll call you when I need you."

1 These two guys remained there until that afternoon or there about

2 and since there was nothing going on, there were no significant

3 activities, they went home.

4 Q. When did the phones start working again? When were you able to

5 talk to the command and later with Radovan Antic?

6 A. Well, I called Radovan in the morning, around 8.00 or 9.00 for the

7 first time, but he already wasn't there, he had already gone to

8 Pelagicevo. The second time I called him was about maybe 11.00. I could

9 see when the car came because this is across the street from me, I could

10 see that the car arrived and that's when I called him.

11 Q. And can you please tell us what happened after that, what happened

12 the next day?

13 A. The next day, Radovan called me and I went across the street. I

14 went there.

15 Q. We're talking about the 18th of April?

16 A. Yes, I went to see him. Since the phones were working, I had

17 already called some other people and I asked them what was going on and

18 the people told me so I knew what had happened. So when I went to see

19 Radovan, he said that the commander of the Tactical Group ordered that a

20 part of the 4th Detachment takes the border areas around the Bosna River

21 and that a part of the 4th Detachment should go about collecting the

22 illegal weapons.

23 It's clear that I didn't have any concrete tasks in this matter

24 because this was done by the units. The commander of the battalion issued

25 orders to the commanders of the companies, then the commanders would go to

1 their companies. They would then issue orders to the section commanders

2 and then the soldiers were then issued with the orders only once the

3 section commander came or if the whole company was lined up.

4 So the commander told me, since the activities of the soldiers had

5 already started, not only in the 4th Detachment but of others, that it

6 would be necessary to see if it would be -- if it is possible to form a

7 kitchen in the Tekstilac, that was this other building.

8 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes.

9 MR. DI FAZIO: I'm just waiting for the witness to finish his

10 answer. I'm not objecting to anything, if Your Honours please. I just

11 seek a clarification and I think the Chamber should also have this

12 clarified for them. The witness spoke of -- Mr. Tadic spoke of the

13 commander of the battalion issued orders to the commanders of the

14 companies and the commanders would go to their companies. I take it that

15 the battalion referred to there is in fact the 4th detachment and if I am

16 wrong in that, then perhaps that should be clarified.

17 A. When I was talking about Radovan Antic, I was thinking of the 4th

18 Detachment. At that time, it was still called that and he received orders

19 from the commander of the 17th Tactical Group. Radovan issued orders to

20 his subordinates and they were the commanders of the companies that were

21 also members of the 4th Detachment, and they, in turn, issued orders to

22 their subordinates to soldiers who were members of the 4th Detachment. So

23 I was talking about members of the 4th Detachment only at this point.

24 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. Just one clarification for the transcript, when you mentioned

1 those who were firing at your house, were they soldiers or those people in

2 the camouflage uniforms in the multi-coloured uniforms?

3 A. We were able to see those men well. They were the ones in the

4 multi-coloured uniforms, the special forces. Had it been any of the

5 locals, they probably would not have fired at my house because they knew

6 it was my house and would have had no reason to fire at it. But the men

7 in the multi-coloured uniforms were afraid of any house or any corner

8 because they knew that there were armed people in Samac.

9 Q. We had started to talk about the kitchen. Which task were you

10 given, who gave it to you, and what did you do about it?

11 A. I've already said somewhere here that I received this task from

12 Commander Radovan Antic and I also said that besides the 4th Detachment,

13 there were other soldiers in Samac and those people needed to be fed so a

14 meal had to be provided for that day.

15 We agreed, we thought about where the best place for that would be

16 and we agreed that it would be the Tekstilac facility because they had a

17 kitchen, that's what we called it at the time, social canteen, the

18 cafeteria, because this facility had a lot of workers there before the

19 war. It employed more than 1.000 people so it had a very large cafeteria

20 and kitchen facilities, a lot of pots and pans and all the other utensils

21 necessary for food preparation.

22 So I took this task upon myself, this was my specific task as a

23 logistics person and Radovan Antic ordered the rest of the 4th Detachment

24 to start collecting the weapons. So the 4th Detachment was not to collect

25 weapons from the whole of the town, but it would only be the neighbourhood

1 marked as the 4th district. So perhaps I will have an opportunity to show

2 you what the 4th district is.

3 This embankment on the River Bosna is also in this 4th district

4 and also a part of the embankment of the River Sava they also belong to

5 the 4th district. It's clear that it was essential to find people who

6 would set up this kitchen and get it going. I went over there and I found

7 this porter and there were also some soldiers who were already doing

8 something in another part of this Tekstilac facility and I asked him -- I

9 never entered this Sit before, so I asked who were the cooks, who is the

10 warehouse person. He explained to me that the warehouse person is this

11 man. He told me who the cooks were, gave me their names, and I tried to

12 find those people.

13 I found some of those women who had worked in the kitchen before.

14 Some women applied who had not been working as cooks before and then this

15 warehouse person opened up the warehouse and food was taken from there.

16 In the beginning it was necessary to have somebody who could manage this

17 kitchen because I wasn't able to do that, so there was a man who was also

18 in the catering business, his name was Djoko Arsenic, I think, and he was

19 in the food service industry. Anyway, he knew those jobs, he was a

20 director of a hotel for a while also. So he took upon himself to manage

21 and to take care of the technical organisational part. He found the food,

22 he issued assignments to the cooks because he knew how to do that better

23 than I did. So this is how this kitchen was set up where the soldiers

24 were fed.

25 Citizens at that time did not have the possibility to cook for

1 themselves, there was no water, there was no electricity so there were a

2 lot of people who regularly came also. It was a very big kitchen and 300

3 or 400 people at a time could be seated there. So when the soldiers

4 finished their meal, then the citizens would come afterwards and have

5 their meals there. This was the practice later, in particular when it was

6 already very difficult regarding the food situation, so many people did

7 come there to get food.

8 Q. Were there any other kitchens like that in Samac?

9 A. At the same time, at the other end of town, another kitchen also

10 was set up also in a former company, I think the company was called Utva.

11 So on the premises of the Utva company, this restaurant served both Utva

12 and Uniglas, they both used that kitchen. It was completely equipped so

13 it was necessary just to unlock the kitchen and to call the people who

14 worked there before.

15 So this kitchen also was operational and it covered that part of

16 town so that people wouldn't have to walk to 3 kilometres to get to this

17 first kitchen but they could get to the second kitchen for food.

18 Q. In this period when you were in the kitchen when you were

19 organising this work, and we'll see how long that was, do you know whether

20 food was distributed from that kitchen and if so, where was it

21 distributed?

22 A. Yes. For example, those soldiers who were at their posts, and we

23 talked about that, so they were on duty at their posts along the River

24 Bosna, the River Sava, at Grebnice, along the line, they were not able to

25 leave the line and go and have lunch, for example. Also, the police,

1 detainees, people who were not able to come to lunch.

2 There was a vehicle with soldiers, army rations, these are special

3 containers for this food, and food can remain quite warm for a long time

4 in these special containers so, for example, one of these containers was

5 enough to feed 20 people. So this vehicle would then go and visit all the

6 posts and distribute food to all of the men who were on those positions.

7 Q. You mentioned detention. Do you have direct knowledge that in

8 that period from the kitchen whose work you organised covered the feeding

9 of detainees?

10 A. I said that everybody received food from that kitchen, guards,

11 policemen, and also detainees so a food container, for example, would be

12 taken. For example, if there were 20 detainees and 10 police officers,

13 then two of those food containers would be taken and this would be

14 distributed over there. After that, the food containers were collected.

15 So for a certain period, both detainees and soldiers and civilians all ate

16 from the same pot they didn't have different food to eat because it didn't

17 seem economical to do that.

18 MR. DI FAZIO: I was just waiting for the translation to finish,

19 if Your Honours please. It's not clear to me, and I think it's important

20 for the Chamber to know, is Mr. Tadic saying that food distribution to

21 prisoners took place on the day that he was sent to the kitchens, that is,

22 I think, the 18th or 17th, or is he speaking generally about the following

23 weeks and days? Because the way I understand his evidence is that food

24 was being cooked and given to prisoners immediately and therefore

25 prisoners were in existence immediately.

1 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. Mr. Tadic, just to clarify, you were called by Antic on the 18th.

3 How much time did you need when this kitchen started functioning after the

4 18th and how long did you participate in the work of this kitchen; can you

5 remember?

6 A. I think that the kitchen started to function on the same day, but

7 here I was talking about the way distribution was carried out. So I said

8 that as an example, whether this was on the 18th or the 19th or whether

9 the inmates received food on the 20th. I'm just talking about the way the

10 distribution was organised, but I cannot connect that to a specific date.

11 It was done as needed. So on the 18th, there was nobody, for example,

12 detained so food wasn't taken. If there were ten, then food was provided

13 for ten and the same goes for soldiers. If there were ten of them on the

14 line, it was taken, the food was taken for ten of them, so I'm just only

15 giving examples.

16 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I think that it is time

17 to stop, perhaps, with the examination for today.

18 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes.

19 Mr. Tadic, go and sit in his place.

20 [The Accused stands down]

21 The Trial Chamber was informed that there were some statements

22 which were ready for submission.

23 MR. LAZAREVIC: Yes, Your Honours. According to what I promised

24 yesterday, I have here all the statements translated. These are

25 statements taken during our mission in Bosanski Samac in December and

1 first statement that I would like to tender into evidence is the statement

2 of Witness Djuro Prgomet.

3 JUDGE MUMBA: These statements will be numbered for identification

4 purposes only so can you start with the first one. And these statements

5 are for the witnesses of Simo Zaric.

6 MR. LAZAREVIC: Yes, Your Honour.

7 Can we now have the number? Thank you.

8 THE REGISTRAR: The first statement and the name is -- I can say

9 the name -- Djuro Prgomet, D33/4 ID.

10 JUDGE MUMBA: Can we be given our copies? And the copies in

11 Serbo-Croat will have the number.

12 MR. LAZAREVIC: And there is also an English translation after the

13 B/C/S version. They are put together, one after another.

14 THE REGISTRAR: For correction, the English would be D33/4 ID and

15 the B/C/S version is D33/4 ter ID.

16 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you. The next one.

17 MR. LAZAREVIC: The next statement that we would like to tender

18 into evidence is the statement of Witness Fadil Topcagic.

19 THE REGISTRAR: This statement is marked for identification D34/4

20 ter ID for the B/C/S and for the English, D33/4 ID.

21 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Excuse me, I thought the previous one was D33,

22 this one should be D34.

23 MR. LAZAREVIC: Yes.

24 JUDGE MUMBA: The witness' name is Fadil Topcagic.

25 MR. LAZAREVIC: Yes. The next statement that we would like to

1 tender is the statement of Petar Karlovic.

2 THE REGISTRAR: This statement will be marked for identification

3 D35 ter ID for B/C/S and D35/4 ID for English.

4 MR. LAZAREVIC: Yes. Next statement that we would like to tender

5 is the statement of Witness Fatima Zaric.

6 THE REGISTRAR: This statement will be marked D36/4 ter for B/C/S

7 and D36/4 ID for English, both are marked ID.

8 MR. LAZAREVIC: Can we proceed? The next statement that we would

9 like to tender is statement of Witness Vaso Antic.

10 THE REGISTRAR: This statement is marked D37/4 ID for the English

11 version and D37/4 ter ID for the B/C/S version.

12 MR. LAZAREVIC: The next statement is the one made by Witness

13 Hasin Focakovic.

14 THE REGISTRAR: This statement is marked D38/4 ID for the English

15 and D38/4 ter ID for the B/C/S.

16 MR. LAZAREVIC: The next witness whose statement we would like to

17 tender into evidence is Mihaljo Topolovac.

18 THE REGISTRAR: This statement is marked D39/4 ID for the English

19 version and D39/4 ter ID for the B/C/S.

20 MR. LAZAREVIC: Yes. And finally, we have the statement of

21 Witness Viktorija Topcagic. This is the last one that we would like to

22 tender.

23 THE REGISTRAR: And this final document is marked D40/4 ID for the

24 English and D40/4 ter ID for the B/C/S version.

25 MR. LAZAREVIC: I would also like to inform the Trial Chamber that

1 we have collected two more statements according to Rule 92 bis during our

2 stay in Belgrade and Mr. Pisarevic will bring them in The Hague on Monday,

3 and this is when we are going to give them to be translated and tender

4 them into evidence as soon as we manage with this.

5 JUDGE MUMBA: Very well.

6 [Legal officer and Trial Chamber confer]

7 JUDGE MUMBA: We will now adjourn and continue our proceedings on

8 Monday. Next week, for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we have the

9 courtroom since the other case is not sitting so in the afternoon we will

10 sit for an extra one and a half hours from 1500 to 1630 hours, that is

11 Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday besides our normal sessions in the morning.

12 We will rise.

13 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Excuse me, Your Honour.

14 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, Mr. Lukic, I suppose you have to sit.

15 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] I didn't wish to take away from your

16 weekend but I was informed by the Registry that we can sit both in the

17 morning and in the afternoon next week. Since my witness has already

18 started testifying, I was unable to approach him regarding that, but prior

19 to the beginning, I asked him in view of his health --

20 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, Mr. Lukic.

21 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] -- when the accused were brought here

22 into the courtroom, just before we began our hearing, I asked him whether

23 we could agree to these new hours to sit both in the morning and in the

24 afternoon and my client just told me very briefly that he would be unable

25 to carry out with that schedule. So could we ask Mr. Tadic now, in view

1 of the pain he has in his leg, a very intense pain at that, could we ask

2 him whether he could agree to sit both in the morning and in the

3 afternoon. Could he address the Chamber himself or could we later inform

4 the Chamber about that, as I was unable to speak to him directly.

5 I worry that this lunch break, which is one and a half hour long

6 could have a negative effect on him. I saw him in prison today. He has

7 trouble walking. He doesn't like to complain about this, but I could see

8 that it was causing him pain and I'm sure that the doctor in the detention

9 unit could affirm this as well.

10 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, Mr. Lukic, but we haven't had a medical report

11 at all. I remember this was said sometime back, but there's no medical

12 report. And one would have thought that it would be advantageous for him

13 so that he would complete his evidence early enough.

14 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Frankly speaking, Your Honour, as far

15 as I am concerned, I think that would be fine and I think my client would

16 agree with this, but I am afraid that in view of a one and a half hour

17 lunch break, his concentration might slip in the afternoon. This is what

18 he told me that his head -- this intense pain over the past few days and

19 weeks, he underwent therapy and he doesn't have to use crutches anymore,

20 but I could see today that he limps when he walks and we didn't manage to

21 talk about his going to the doctor. We were so busy preparing for his

22 testimony that we had no chance to discuss this at all.

23 MR. DI FAZIO: If it's of any assistance to the Chamber and to

24 Mr. Lukic, the Prosecution has no objection to Mr. Lukic conferring with

25 his client over that issue, of course, as long as it's confined to that

1 issue if that may be of some assistance.

2 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, Mr. Lukic.

3 [Defence counsel and accused confer]

4 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, Mr. Lukic.

5 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Mr. Tadic has just told me that he has

6 to spend six hours here no matter what and he feels very bad about that

7 both in view of his age and his problems with prostate and his

8 osteoporosis and other ailments including this one with his leg so it is

9 very difficult for him to sit for longer than the half a day session.

10 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, but I did say that you should have got a

11 medical report for that.

12 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] I shall do that on Monday, as early as

13 Monday. You did tell us that we should look out for any changes, but the

14 initial courtroom schedule envisaged us working only half a day, and

15 therefore, I was unable to contact my client and see how he felt about

16 this.

17 I think if the Registry assists us, we should be able to obtain a

18 medical report as early as Monday afternoon in which a doctor could tell

19 us whether my client is able to spend here the entire day. As far as we

20 are concerned, we are prepared to complete his testimony as quickly as

21 possible.

22 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, we will sit those hours on Monday and see how

23 it will go.

24 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Does that mean that we will start at

25 9.00 or 9.30? Are we going to work only in the morning on Monday, just so

1 that we can organise our work.

2 JUDGE MUMBA: We will start at 9.00 and sit the normal hours up to

3 but we'll stop earlier, up 1330 and then start at 1500 hours and sit up to

4 1630. Understood? Yes.

5 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Yes, we have understood. Thank you.

6 JUDGE MUMBA: The Court will rise.

7 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned

8 at 7.07 p.m., to be reconvened on Monday

9 the 17th day of February, 2003, at 9.00 a.m.

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