Page 5647
1 Tuesday, 21 September 2010
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 2.19 p.m.
5 JUDGE FLUEGGE: [French interpretation on English channel]
6 I'll try it again.
7 Good afternoon to everybody.
8 The next witness should be brought in, please.
9 Mr. McCloskey.
10 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes. Good afternoon, Mr. President, Your
11 Honours, everyone.
12 Just to let you know that some translations have been up-loaded:
13 P16C, P149, P665B, P667B, P851A, P851B, P661B, P845B.
14 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much. They will be now exhibits,
15 with the given numbers, and we are grateful for the work the Translation
16 Unit has performed.
17 [The witness entered court]
18 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Good afternoon, sir.
19 THE WITNESS: Good afternoon, Your Honour.
20 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Welcome to the Tribunal.
21 Would you please read aloud the affirmation to tell the truth
22 which is shown -- on the card which is shown to you now.
23 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the
24 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
25 WITNESS: RICHARD WRIGHT
Page 5648
1 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much. Please sit down.
2 First, the Prosecutor, Mr. McCloskey, will have some questions
3 for you.
4 Mr. McCloskey.
5 MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you, Mr. President.
6 Examination by Mr. McCloskey:
7 Q. Could you first state your name, and tell us your profession.
8 A. My full name is Richard Vernon Stafford Wright, and I am an
9 archaeologist.
10 Q. And I will soon be reading a brief summary of your prior
11 testimonies, but I just -- to try to clarify right off, my summary says
12 you are an emeritus professor of anthropology from university. Can you
13 explain how it is that you're an archaeologist, but that your formal
14 description is a professor of anthropology?
15 A. Yes. The profession of anthropology in many universities
16 includes archaeology and physical anthropology. In the forensic field,
17 particularly in -- yes, in the forensic field, there is a distinction
18 between anthropology, which should be called physical anthropology, and
19 archaeology. At the University of Sydney
20 Anthropology, had the chair of anthropology, but I was an archaeologist.
21 Q. All right. And we'll do a short explanation of that as it fits
22 your testimony a little bit later.
23 Have you had a chance to review your testimony in the Popovic and
24 Krstic cases?
25 A. Yes, I have.
Page 5649
1 Q. And you pointed out a mistake in the Popovic testimony, I
2 believe. Do you remember what that was that you wanted to clear up?
3 A. At one point, I was asked the number of graves I had exhumed in
4 1998, and I said two primary graves and seven secondary graves. In fact,
5 it was one primary grave, and not two, in 1998.
6 MR. McCLOSKEY: All right.
7 And at this point, I think I will read a brief 92 bis summary to
8 set the scene for us.
9 Professor Richard Wright testified for the OTP before this
10 Tribunal in the trial of Radislav Krstic in May 2000 and in the trial of
11 Vujadin Popovic et al. in February 2007.
12 Professor Wright is an emeritus professor of anthropology at the
13 University of Sydney
14 Professor Wright served as chief archaeologist for the detection and
15 exhumation of mass graves associated with the fall of Srebrenica.
16 Professor Wright also worked as chief archaeologist for the OTP in the
17 exhumation of various other mass graves involved in other Prosecution
18 cases, including graves at Brcko and the exhumation in Croatia of a mass
19 grave containing Serb civilians.
20 Professor Wright supervised the exhumation of Srebrenica mass
21 graves, including the removal and accounting of human remains and
22 artefacts from mass graves for their transportation to the morgue for
23 examination by anthropologists and forensic pathologists.
24 Professor Wright testified regarding the exhumations of the
25 primary graves of Petkovci Dam, Kozluk, and Glogova 1, and of the
Page 5650
1 secondary grave-sites at Liplje, Hodzici, Cancari, and Zeleni Jadar. He
2 prepared three reports and one interim report summarising those
3 exhumations.
4 Professor Wright and his team were able to link the primary
5 graves to the secondary graves through examination of transported soil,
6 rocks, artefacts, and other information gained.
7 Professor Wright also conducted some examination of the artefacts
8 found in the graves he exhumed. He observed that the documents found
9 attest to the Muslim affinity of some of the people. He explained how he
10 was able to determine the time-frame the victims at grave-sites were
11 killed based on examination and analysis of Seiko watches worn by the
12 victims.
13 With regard to Kozluk, Professor Wright determined that many of
14 the bodies recovered were blindfolded and/or had ligatures binding their
15 hands behind their backs. He also discovered bullets embedded in the
16 soil underneath the bodies at this site. These factors led him to
17 conclude that Kozluk was a place of execution as well as a mass
18 grave-site.
19 Professor Wright noted that some of the bodies in the Glogova
20 grave he exhumed showed signs of blast damage. In addition, parts of
21 exploded grenades were found with some of the bodies, together with rifle
22 bullets. Professor Wright determined from the information gained from
23 his own inspections and from OTP investigators that some of the objects
24 considered to be from the Kravica warehouse were found in the Glogova
25 grave he exhumed.
Page 5651
1 Professor Wright also supervised the preliminary excavation or
2 probing of an additional 21 secondary grave-sites along the Cancari Road
3 the Hodzici Road, Liplje, and Zeleni Jadar areas during the 1998 season.
4 He explained the process used to identify the sites and testified that a
5 conservative estimate would suggest an additional 2.571 bodies exist in
6 those unexhumed graves.
7 Now, I have a list of the various exhibits and their numbers that
8 came in through you in the last trial, but I also have one that was a bit
9 separate, and so we need to call up 65 ter 6555.
10 And, Professor Wright, this is a document by you entitled
11 "Interim Report on Excavation and Exhumations at Glogova Site 1, Grave L,
12 Carried Out in September 2000."
13 Q. And I don't want to get into this with you, I just wondered if
14 you can identify this front page and tell us if this is a report that you
15 provided the OTP for use in its trials.
16 A. That is my report.
17 Q. All right. And how is it, just briefly, that you ended up doing
18 this interim report?
19 A. When we had finished at Glogova, we had established some seven
20 sites for investigating, and I was asked by the investigator, Jean Ruez,
21 to provide him with an interim report on this particular grave. He
22 didn't explain, but I provided this report earlier than the main report
23 for the Glogova site.
24 MR. McCLOSKEY: All right, thank you.
25 And, Mr. President, I have the numbers before me of the exhibits
Page 5652
1 in the chart. They are P869 through 891, as well as this 65 ter 6555,
2 and I would offer all that material into evidence. And that should be a
3 complete version of the 92 bis package -- 94 bis.
4 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey, I'm not sure if you asked the
5 witness, Professor Wright, if he would provide the same answers in this
6 trial if he would be asked in the same way as in the Popovic trial.
7 MR. McCLOSKEY: You're absolutely correct. I left that out.
8 Q. Professor Wright, if you were asked the same questions in that
9 trial, would your answers be the same, aside, of course, from the one
10 mistake you've identified?
11 A. Yes, they would be the same.
12 MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay. Thank you, Mr. President.
13 Now I would -- with the proper foundation laid, I would offer the
14 material into evidence.
15 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you.
16 The documents P869 - it's the transcript of the Popovic
17 case - will be received, and as well the documents P870 to P891, except
18 P881, which has no translation yet; in that case, pending translation.
19 And was the interim report we have on the screen now used in that
20 Popovic trial?
21 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, it was, Mr. President. It came in through
22 another witness, I think Mr. Janc. It came in through him in one of his
23 summary testimonies.
24 JUDGE FLUEGGE: That will be received as well.
25 THE REGISTRAR: 65 ter 6555 will be Exhibit P1014.
Page 5653
1 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you.
2 Please carry on, Mr. McCloskey.
3 MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you.
4 Q. Now, Professor Wright, we -- your reports and your testimony
5 speak for themselves, so we'll just -- I just want to briefly touch on a
6 few of the basics to help us put everything into context.
7 Can you give us a brief explanation of the differences between
8 your profession as an archaeologist, the professions that worked with
9 you, of anthropology and forensic pathology. The Court has heard these
10 terms through various times, but you're really the first expert, I
11 believe, that's talked about it. So you, as an archaeologist, can you
12 just briefly describe your job and how these other professions fit in
13 with your work, if they did.
14 A. Yes. Archaeologists essentially examine the soil and the
15 contents of the soil, and recover the material. They're experts in the
16 engineering aspects of big holes, safety concerns using machinery.
17 They're experts in recording where information -- where artefacts and
18 bodies come from as they're removed so that we can reconstruct the whole
19 form of a grave. And we know about conservation.
20 The anthropologists -- there were anthropologists with
21 archaeological knowledge on my exhumations, and the reason why they were
22 there is they could excavate, but they could also track a body. They
23 knew what bones come from which parts of the body and so were able to
24 make sense of an often contorted mass of bodies.
25 Back at the morgue, in an area where I had no responsibility, the
Page 5654
1 anthropologists evaluate the age of a person at death, the sex of the
2 person, quite often any trauma that the skeleton has suffered, and then
3 the pathologists sign off, I suppose you could say, sign off on the cause
4 and manner of death.
5 So there are these three components: The work at the grave,
6 which is supervised by archaeologists, and with anthropologists involved;
7 the work at the morgue, where anthropologists work on the remains; and
8 then the pathologists, who look for the cause and manner of death.
9 Q. Okay. And as we noted in the summary, in your testimony at one
10 site, you gave your opinion on -- that at Kozluk, people had been
11 executed, in your view, based on what you had seen as an archaeologist.
12 Were you in any way taking over or interfering with the pathologist's
13 role in determining cause of death by coming to that conclusion or not?
14 A. I think I would take it as a fairly safe assumption that when I
15 see people who have been shot, I can recognise bullet holes, I have
16 plenty of experience, and when I see their hands tied behind their backs
17 and they're wearing blindfolds, I would come to the conclusion that they
18 had been executed.
19 Q. And is coming to conclusions based on what you view in a dig and
20 what you examine, is that a normal part of archaeology or would someone
21 suggest you were speculating outside of your field?
22 A. I would not, in the case of a body that was found in a grave and
23 had no gun-shot wounds and no other signs of trauma, and -- I wouldn't
24 start to speculate about the way in which that person died. But in the
25 case of some of the sites that I worked on in Bosnia, I think it would be
Page 5655
1 obvious to non-experts what has happened; certainly obvious to me.
2 Q. Is telling the story of what you see part of what an
3 archaeologist does, putting your observations together?
4 A. Yes. An archaeologist needs to be careful not to go beyond their
5 expertise and what is obvious, but I knew that these remains were going
6 to go to other experts, and, nevertheless, I felt that I should describe
7 the context in which I saw these bodies. Otherwise, they go to the
8 morgue and there's no background information. Blindfolds may fall off
9 during transport, ligatures behind the back may fall off during transport
10 to the morgue. So I was always conscious of the need to make interim
11 observations in case the material never reached the morgue. That was a
12 possibility, given the insecurity of the area. But I don't consider I
13 went beyond what -- beyond my level of expertise, and many of these
14 observations were, I would say, self-evident.
15 Q. And we won't go into this now, but is it fair to say that there
16 are, well, probably literally thousands, if not more, photographs and
17 video that you documented your work in Bosnia?
18 A. Yes. In addition to my reports, there were the logs that we kept
19 which list each body and give some of its properties. There were body
20 sheets that were filled out by the excavator, showing how the body was
21 lying, and any other artefacts associated with the body, and there was a
22 complete photographic record that was officially logged so that each
23 artefact -- with the exception, as time went on, of shell cases, each
24 artefact that would be properly associated with a body was photographed.
25 Q. All right. And His Honours and Her Honour have heard lots of
Page 5656
1 evidence about primary and secondary graves. And you worked, we know
2 from your reports, on the Petkovci grave, which you determined to be a
3 primary disturbed grave. Can you just briefly tell the Court how you, as
4 the chief archaeologist, determined that this was a disturbed grave, just
5 in brief terms?
6 A. Yes. Can I just go back one point and just define some of the
7 terms?
8 Q. Yes.
9 A. The first term that I use is "an execution site," a place where I
10 interpret people were killed. They are then put into a grave, which we
11 have examples at Kozluk and at Petkovci Dam. They're put into a grave.
12 Later, about three months later, from aerial images we have, these bodies
13 or some of the bodies out of these primary graves were removed and taken
14 up into the hills, essentially, and put into secondary graves. So
15 there's the execution site. The primary grave is normally at the
16 execution site, but not in the case of Glogova. That's removed. The
17 primary graves may remain undisturbed, but in cases I looked at, they
18 didn't remain undisturbed; people had taken bodies out and put them into
19 secondary graves.
20 Q. Thank you. That's very helpful. Just tell us a little bit about
21 Petkovci.
22 A. Petkovci Dam, I was told by the investigators, was a primary
23 grave, the place of execution being at the dam. The place that I saw on
24 aerial images was -- and that I went to, the place was in the structure
25 of the dam. There was a big stone supporting platform to hold the wall
Page 5657
1 of the dam back. And I was told that this was undisturbed, and the
2 aerial images that I saw indicated it was undisturbed. But when we
3 excavated it, we found that there were no bodies in place. I mean, a
4 primary grave, by definition, the bodies are lying there. There was just
5 bits and pieces of bodies as we went down through this two metres or so
6 of rocks, scattered bits of clothing, limb bones lying on a ramp that had
7 been used to get into that grave and remove the bodies, cut marks of the
8 machine that had scooped the bodies out. So it was clear to me that this
9 was certainly not a primary grave. It had been, archaeologists use the
10 term "robbed" in a non-pejorative sense, the don't imply thieving, but it
11 had been disturbed, more general terminology and it was not a primary
12 grave, and I reported this back to ICTY. And I understand, though I
13 haven't seen it, that there was an image which had been missed, that it
14 showed that the site was disturbed in October, I think, or late
15 September.
16 Q. Do you mean it wasn't a primary, undisturbed grave or not a
17 primary grave?
18 A. It's a primary grave, but it had been disturbed, yes.
19 Q. Thank you. All right. And did you also have a chance to exhume
20 what you believed to be secondary graves?
21 A. Yes. In fact, most of my work has been done on secondary graves.
22 Q. Since you just talked about the dam and its sort of unique
23 structure, did you see -- did you work on any exhumations of secondary
24 graves that you felt were related to the dam primary grave?
25 A. Yes, I did. The site of Liplje -- I can't remember the number.
Page 5658
1 May I consult my notes to answer?
2 Q. Yes. Can you tell us what you've --
3 A. I have a copy of my report on the 1998 exhumations.
4 Q. All right.
5 A. The site -- you asked me did I see a site which I would attribute
6 to the Petkovci Dam, and the site is Liplje number 2, is the number we
7 gave to it. And the reason why I thought the bodies had come from this
8 dam was that it was unique amongst any other secondary grave I'd looked
9 at, where there were large lumps of rock, cut limestone rock, which were
10 foreign to the area. The bodies were -- there were hardly any complete
11 bodies. They were smashed up, and I concluded that they had come from
12 the Petkovci Dam or some similar -- such similar structure.
13 Q. This cut limestone rock that you saw, when you say "cut," what do
14 you mean by that?
15 A. Well, the Petkovci Dam is constructed of rubble, quarried lumps
16 of rock maybe as big as this desk, angular.
17 Q. So man cut through a quarry is what you mean by that?
18 A. Yes. Not quarried into rectangular blocks but blasted and cut up
19 into a form which forms a rubble stabilising wall for the dam.
20 Q. And --
21 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey and Professor, I would like to ask
22 you to pause between question and answer. As you are using the same
23 language, there are some problems with the record otherwise.
24 MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you, Mr. President. That's my fault.
25 Q. All right. And can you briefly tell us about a secondary site
Page 5659
1 along Cancari Road that you were able to connect to the primary site of
2 Kozluk.
3 A. Yes. You're referring to Cancari 3 is the name -- number we gave
4 to the grave you're asking about. We had -- we assumed it was a
5 secondary grave because it appeared on aerial imagery from October 1995.
6 The first thing we do at a site is to scrape the surface to
7 define whether there is a grave there and exactly where it is, to see the
8 edges. As we were scraping the surface, some hundreds if not thousands
9 of pieces of broken green glass bottles were found, including some with
10 the -- although they were broken, with their crown seals on the top, and
11 we also found a great thick pile of labels from the Kozluk Bottling
12 Factory. Such glass was not to be found in this valley. I mean, it was
13 not a result of a rubbish dump. It was found -- the glass was found only
14 in what later turned out to be a mass grave, and so I formed the opinion
15 that the bodies that were in the secondary grave must have come from a
16 site which was strewn with broken bottle glass. And since the name
17 "Kozluk" was on the labels, I told ICTY -- I told the investigators that
18 I thought there was a primary grave which was, in fact, unknown at that
19 time at Kozluk. And in -- I think it was 30 or 40 kilometres away from
20 the secondary grave.
21 And then later that year, I went -- or late -- after I'd reported
22 this find, I went with the investigators to Kozluk, went behind the
23 bottling factory, and we found a place where there were human remains
24 lying on the surface. And in 1999, I and my team went to Kozluk and
25 found the source of the bodies. There were still some 300 or so left in
Page 5660
1 part of the primary grave that hadn't been interfered with, and we
2 exhumed them.
3 Q. Did you see any green glass in this area where you exhumed the
4 grave?
5 A. The area was covered with green glass.
6 Q. And was there a bottle factory close by?
7 A. There was a bottle factory close by. I think there must have
8 been some accident in the bottling factory, since there was just one type
9 of bottle which was broken up into thousands of -- one type of bottle
10 that had been broken up into thousands of fragments. So it was a
11 specific case of the transfer of evidence from a primary grave to a
12 secondary grave.
13 Q. All right. Well, thank you for those few examples. I know you
14 and I could talk for days on this topic, but let me go to something else.
15 In your testimony last time, you acknowledged that when you were
16 doing the work for the ICTY, you had not had the experience of exhuming
17 graves that contained battle casualties. Is that correct?
18 A. Yes, I hadn't.
19 Q. Now, you had exhumed a grave in the Ukraine from World War II; is
20 that correct?
21 A. Yes, a massacre of Jews in 19 -- of about 550 Jews by a
22 [indiscernible] contingent in 1942.
23 Q. But that was --
24 A. They had been shot in the back of the head. Not battle.
25 Q. Now, you have -- have you, since your last testimony, gained any
Page 5661
1 experience in exhuming graves containing battle casualties?
2 A. Yes. Last year, I worked for -- as a senior forensic adviser for
3 a company called Oxford Archaeology. It had a contract to exhume eight
4 pits in Frommel, which is just across the border from Belgium, near
5 Lille
6 machine-gun posts and well over a thousand Australians were killed that
7 night. They were then -- those that made their way into the German
8 trenches in the course of the battle or were killed immediately in front
9 of the German trenches were then buried by the Germans in -- they dug
10 eight graves, but they only used five. And Oxford Archaeology was
11 responsible for removing these bodies that were buried in the course of
12 battle, and they've now been reburied in a war cemetery at Frommel.
13 Now, I was there at the beginning of this work, and I've
14 subsequently studied the disposition of these bodies in the mass graves.
15 I wasn't part of the exhumation team, as such, but I have now had
16 experience of war graves.
17 Q. We know from your prior testimony that many of the graves you saw
18 in Bosnia
19 largely what you're viewing as you're doing your exhumation work. How
20 about this grave in Belgium
21 A. We know from the Bavarian Regiment or Brigade -- I'm not good on
22 military terms. We know from the Bavarian records that the Germans were
23 told to bury these people with respect, and what we found in the five
24 pits were that the bodies were laid side by side, in two layers. Not
25 laid out with complete -- as you would be in a coffin, but that would be,
Page 5662
1 in my opinion, due to the effects of rigidity in the body, because they
2 were buried within a week of being killed. So they were -- yes, they
3 were respectfully arranged.
4 Q. Now, as you recall, last trial quite a bit of the
5 cross-examination was spent on the possibility of battle casualties and
6 your experience in this regard. Does your experience with the grave in
7 Belgium
8 to change any opinions of what you had done in Bosnia?
9 A. No, it hasn't caused me to change opinions, but I think I would
10 be very careful in -- I would not like to generalise from the Fromel
11 graves as to what war graves, in general, look like. But that they
12 contain people in uniform and with military accoutrements, that we
13 certainly saw at Frommel.
14 Q. And were there any identifications able to be made of the
15 Australians in the Frommel grave?
16 A. Yes. There were some British there, and they think out of the
17 250, probably 30 or so were British. But the Australian Department of
18 Defence set up a large DNA
19 they had lost predecessors of their family at Frommel, to volunteer swabs
20 for DNA
21 mass application of DNA
22 individuals that we recovered, and most of those were identified by DNA
23 Q. And have you had a chance to look at or briefly review the DNA
24 studies that have been done, well, relatively recently by the ICMP
25 regarding the graves that you exhumed?
Page 5663
1 A. That's out of my field, and I wouldn't care to answer questions
2 on that. And I certainly haven't reviewed it, no.
3 Q. Okay. The science of DNA
4 example, from the Frommel grave, was that something that you had at all
5 anticipated having at your finger-tips in 1998, 1999, 2000 when you were
6 doing your work?
7 A. No, I think that it probably was unprecedented at that time. I
8 would not have thought that it was going to be applied, but it wouldn't
9 have been up to me to do that, anyway. But I've not heard of mass DNA
10 work on that scale.
11 MR. McCLOSKEY: All right. Thank you, Professor Wright.
12 I think that gives us a foundation for the cross-examination. I
13 have no further questions, Mr. President.
14 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much, Mr. McCloskey.
15 Mr. Tolimir, now it's your turn with your cross-examination.
16 Please go ahead.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.
18 I would like to greet everybody in the courtroom. I would like
19 to wish Mr. Wright a good afternoon. May there be peace in this house,
20 and may the divine providence bring justice not according to my wishes
21 but according to God's will.
22 Can we look at this witness's CV, please. This is Exhibit P890,
23 and we will look at page 1. Thank you.
24 Cross-examination by Mr. Tolimir:
25 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
Page 5664
1 Q. It says here that you are an associate of the Centre for
2 Comparative Studies on Genocide. My question is: Are you able to
3 describe briefly where the institute is, what topics does it deal with,
4 and what is your role in this institute? Thank you.
5 A. Yes. That is really an outdated entry. The -- I think that the
6 Centre for Comparative Genocide Studies at Macquarie University
7 closed down, but I was closely associated with them. Macquarie
8 University is in Sydney
9 working on the Holocaust material. They're interested primarily in the
10 Jewish Holocaust, and I worked with them then at Macquarie University
11 But I have no link with them for the Bosnian work.
12 Q. Thank you, Professor. I would like to ask you to tell us if you
13 were an associate of that centre before you were engaged on the
14 exhumations of mass graves in Bosnia and Herzegovina or not. Thank you.
15 A. I find that hard to remember now, but I think the answer is, yes,
16 I was associated with that centre before I was contacted by ICTY.
17 I think the work was done mainly in 1995, but my memory is bad on that.
18 Q. Thank you, Professor. Can you please tell us now this: You, as
19 a member of the Medical Doctors Group for Human Rights that is
20 headquartered in Boston
21 were you engaged on the activities -- on the exhumation of mass graves in
22 Bosnia and Herzegovina precisely because you were a member of that group?
23 Thank you.
24 A. I was listed in that group's list of experts, but they never
25 asked me to do any work for them, and I never have done any work for
Page 5665
1 them. So they didn't ask me to do work in Bosnia.
2 Q. Thank you, Professor. My next question is: During the work on
3 the exhumations, were you faced with any kind of problem of a logistical
4 nature? And if so, could you tell us what kind of a problem it was, and
5 when did you have to face it? Thank you.
6 A. Well, my first reply would be that all these mass graves yield
7 logistical problems that have to be solved, but I can't think of a
8 particular problem. For instance -- can I give one example to show what
9 I would regard as a problem? At the Petkovci Dam, the earth-moving
10 equipment that we had was totally inadequate for removing large rocks,
11 and we had to delay the work until we could hire an excavator from Tuzla
12 and bring it across. Is that the sort of question, General Tolimir,
13 you -- logistical question you're asking me?
14 Q. Thank you. Yes, that's mostly what I was thinking of.
15 And now can you please tell us, in your work, were you exposed to
16 any kind of pressure of any type; for example, that something had to be
17 completed within a certain time-frame or that you had to apply a certain
18 method that you disagreed with in the exhumation process? Thank you.
19 A. As to the first question of time, yes, we had to complete the
20 work within the scheduled period because of the security that we were
21 being provided with by SFOR. That didn't, however, in my view,
22 compromise any of the work. We were always finished within the time to
23 my satisfaction.
24 The second question was -- can you just repeat the second
25 question?
Page 5666
1 Q. Were there cases when you had to apply a particular method in
2 your work that you did not agree with but it was imposed on you by
3 others? Thank you.
4 A. Yes, I understand what you're asking. No, my view was that I was
5 contracted by the ICTY as -- to do the work according to what I regarded
6 as suitable standards. I had discussions at times with the investigators
7 about the direction of the work, but at no time did I have pressure put
8 on me, other than to work faster. But I didn't work faster, or my team
9 didn't work faster, so in my view, my professional view, none of the work
10 that we did was compromised by pressure put on me.
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Professor.
12 Can we now look at Exhibit P890. P890, in e-court. Can we look
13 at page 2 in the English?
14 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Judge Mindua has a question for the witness.
15 JUDGE MINDUA: [Interpretation] Witness -- I'm sorry for
16 interrupting the Defence.
17 When I look at your resume, Witness, you were in the Royal Air
18 Force from 1954 to 1956?
19 THE WITNESS: Yes, I was.
20 JUDGE MINDUA: [Interpretation] Why do you say on the record, on
21 page 15, line 15, that you don't know the military term which has been
22 mentioned? Do you know the difference between a regiment and a brigade,
23 when you talked about the German Army?
24 THE WITNESS: I don't know what -- whether the Bavarian group in
25 1916 was a regiment, or a brigade, or how -- what it would have called
Page 5667
1 itself. I haven't studied the history of that aspect of the German Army.
2 I would -- and in the British Air Force, we don't -- we didn't use the
3 words "regiment" and "brigade," so far as I can remember.
4 JUDGE MINDUA: [Interpretation] All right. Thank you very much.
5 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, please go ahead.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.
7 Can we now look at P890, page 2 in the English. Yes, this is
8 this same document. Thank you.
9 Q. Thank you. Professor, you can see it on your screen. Can you
10 please -- thank you. Can you please clarify for us --
11 JUDGE FLUEGGE: [Previous translation continues]... in B/C/S also,
12 the second page, please.
13 Sorry. Please continue.
14 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.
15 Q. Can you please clarify for us your role in the process of
16 exhumations conducted in the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina? It says
17 here you were the director of exhumations of mass graves in Serniki, the
18 Ukraine
19 exhumations in the former Yugoslavia
20 difference between these two functions? Thank you.
21 A. I think there isn't a difference between the two functions. The
22 word "director" and my title, which was chief archaeologist, are not in
23 disagreement with each other. It indicates that -- in both cases, that I
24 was in charge of the exhumations.
25 Q. Thank you. Were you the person in charge both in the Ukraine
Page 5668
1 in Bosnia and Herzegovina? Is that something that we can conclude from
2 your answer or not?
3 A. Yes, I had the same role in both the Ukraine and in
4 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
5 Q. Thank you. Professor, can you please tell us, who was your boss?
6 Who was the leader of the exhumation team during your work there in
7 Bosnia and Herzegovina? Thank you.
8 A. I was the leader of the exhumation team. I was in charge of the
9 exhumations.
10 Q. Thank you. Did you have a superior above you, other than the
11 representatives of the International Criminal Tribunal who engaged you on
12 this work?
13 A. I was answerable to the chief of operations, who was based in
14 The Hague
15 position changed from time to time. That was the person who could hire
16 me or fire me.
17 Q. Thank you, Professor. Can you please tell us whether this chief
18 of operations, who had this role of a boss, could issue binding
19 instructions to you in your work in Bosnia and Herzegovina and directives
20 for your work? Thank you.
21 A. Only in a very general sense of where I was supposed to go,
22 because they needed to provide the support. But I was not required to
23 send in reports to this person, and I never received instructions about
24 how I should carry out the work. But the chief of operations would come
25 down periodically and talk to me about the work, but not to tell me what
Page 5669
1 to do.
2 Q. Thank you. Since you were not obliged to submit reports or
3 report back to the chief of operations, were you obliged to report back
4 to anyone else or to, as it were, accept corrections in your further
5 work? Thank you.
6 A. No, I was not asked to make corrections, if that's what you mean,
7 to my work. I regarded myself as a contracted forensic archaeologist,
8 and I would -- if I had found that my work was being interfered with,
9 then I would have resigned. I only had to give five days' notice. I was
10 not interfered with in the Ukraine
11 Q. Thank you. You understood me correctly. I just wanted to get
12 the answer to my question whether there was any kind of interference in
13 the actual procedure, and the answer was, No, nobody interfered in the
14 actual exhumation procedure. Thank you.
15 A. Can I just clarify? Nobody -- we would have discussed various
16 ways of doing things, but my view was the one that would always carry. I
17 said what I was doing. I was urged, at times, to work faster. If
18 that -- perhaps you might say that's interference, but it was not telling
19 me how to do the work. But I pointed out that the recovery of the bodies
20 with the evidence required us to work at the speed we were working, and
21 that was accepted.
22 Q. Thank you, Professor, for this explanation.
23 Can you please tell us, who was the chief investigator in this
24 period at The Hague Tribunal, and what was his role in the actual
25 procedure of exhumations? Thank you.
Page 5670
1 A. I just need some clarification, I think, of titles here. The
2 chief investigator was, I think, John Ralston at the time, but he was not
3 concerned with the field-work. The head of investigations was somebody
4 called John Ralston.
5 But if you mean the particular case that I was working on while I
6 was working at the graves, the Srebrenica case, then that was Mr. Jean
7 Ruez. He was the investigator, local investigator.
8 Q. Thank you. Your understanding was correct, I meant
9 Mr. Jean-Rene Ruez. That's who I had in mind, and I wanted you to tell
10 me what sort of role he had in the process of exhumations. If you could
11 tell the Trial Chamber. Thank you.
12 A. Mr. Jean-Rene Ruez never took part in the exhumations. He would
13 come and visit the site, but he was not a member of the exhumation team.
14 The team consisted of about 10 experts. He wasn't an -- he wasn't taking
15 part in the exhumations.
16 Q. Does this mean that he had no influence whatsoever on the very
17 process of exhumations? Thank you.
18 A. Well, no. He respected me as an expert, and he had a role, I
19 suppose, because he must have decided, in part, which of the graves we
20 should excavate, though ultimately it was left to me to decide whether
21 the exhumation was feasible. I mean, I had a choice. But on the
22 day-to-day activities of how we did the work, no, he had no role to play.
23 He was, as I -- in my opinion, a visitor to the site. I did not adjust
24 my work because of what he told me to do. He did not interfere in that
25 sense.
Page 5671
1 Q. Thank you, Professor. Did the chief investigator, in this case
2 it was Mr. Jean-Rene Ruez, issue to you any sort of a binding instruction
3 relating to your work in the exhumations? Thank you.
4 A. No, absolutely not, he didn't issue any instructions to me. I
5 wouldn't have accepted instructions from him.
6 Q. Thank you. Since you were hired to work at several localities,
7 who would replace you at one site when you attended to another? What can
8 you tell us in that respect? Thank you.
9 A. I never worked at more than one site at a time. I had a team,
10 and we worked at one site at a time. In the year 2000, when I took some
11 leave in the middle of the work, then Mr. Fredy Peccerelli, from
12 Guatemala
13 on one grave at a time, never more than one.
14 Q. Thank you. Does this mean that you would not start work on a
15 grave-site before work on another grave-site was completed, in your view?
16 Thank you.
17 A. Yes, we didn't start exhuming a new grave before we knew we had
18 exhumed all the bodies from a previous grave. The only exception to
19 this, but it's not really an exception to what I said about not exhuming
20 until we'd finished, but we did probe some of the suspect secondary
21 graves. We did test to see whether they had bodies, but we didn't exhume
22 them. And I would test these graves while the team was doing the
23 exhumations, but we never did more than one exhumation at a time.
24 Q. Thank you. If my understanding is correct -- or, rather, I'll
25 put my question, and you'll make that conclusion yourself.
Page 5672
1 So you were also charged with detecting graves. You were charged
2 with co-ordinating the process of exhumations, as you say, not more than
3 at one site at a time. And did this work also include analysis of
4 artefacts retrieved from a grave-site? Thank you.
5 A. Not analysis of artefacts, no. Observation of -- an observation
6 of what kind of artefacts we had and an entry in the log was made, but we
7 didn't study the artefacts, nor did we study the bodies. We made some
8 observations on the bodies and some observations on the artefacts, and --
9 because we had to enter these observations into our log, into our
10 register. But we didn't spend time studying them. We took -- one
11 special thing we did was -- I suppose you could say "study," in a sense,
12 but it would require a more detailed study, in the end, but when we found
13 wallets, we would open up the wallet to reveal the -- to reveal both
14 sides, and often a wallet will contain an immediately visible photograph
15 of the person who owns the wallet -- or at least a photograph of a
16 person, which one assumes owns the wallet, and we would take a photograph
17 of that, because there's a risk, once the pictures have been exposed to
18 the air again, to oxygen, that they will deteriorate. And, therefore, if
19 we left that -- if we left everything to the people working at the
20 morgue, they might have defective and damaged documents. So we took
21 those pictures, and we also had with us the Red Cross missing persons
22 register. I don't know the exact title, but it was a list of names and
23 where people were last seen. And we would look them up to see if they
24 were on that register. And I do, in my reports, to give a general
25 context to what we were finding, point out that many of the names are in
Page 5673
1 the Red Cross register. That was a bit of study, but not a final study.
2 We were too pressed for time and we didn't have the expertise to study
3 everything as it came out of the ground. We left that to the
4 investigators.
5 Q. Thank you, Professor. I didn't want to interrupt you. My
6 question wasn't about the way in which the analysis was made, but how you
7 would secure the process of exhuming, including artefacts themselves.
8 That's what my question had to do with. Maybe it was misinterpreted. So
9 I imagine you wouldn't have time to deal with security, itself. Did you
10 have somebody else doing that for you there? Thank you.
11 A. Do you mean the security of the bodies and artefacts, to make
12 certain that no one tampered with them, or do you mean of our own
13 security, physical security, which was provided by SFOR? Which are you
14 asking?
15 Q. Thank you. No, no, I was misinterpreted, my assistant told me.
16 I meant security of bodies and artefacts, the work, meaning securing
17 bodies and artefacts for the purposes of subsequent study. Thank you.
18 A. That was my first interpretation of what you were asking.
19 We had at all the sites a police officer who was an expert in
20 chain of custody, as it's called, and he would enter these objects into a
21 log and they'd be put in a sealed bag, and that sealed bag would be put
22 into a locked van in which there were both bodies and artefacts, and it
23 was chilled to prevent deterioration both of the bodies and of the
24 artefacts. So there was a scene-of-crime officer who was responsible for
25 the security of the bodies and for the security of the artefacts, and
Page 5674
1 they were kept in a locked -- a locked van.
2 Q. Thank you. Were you responsible for the entire process and for
3 the synchronisation of the entire process, as you've just explained to
4 us? Thank you.
5 A. Yes, I -- I was -- took advice from the scene-of-crime officer as
6 to what the appropriate sequence of events was, but -- but if I had -- if
7 I saw that that process was not being carried out, I suppose I would have
8 had to interfere. But I didn't interfere with the scene-of-crime
9 officers. They were doing their work, so far as I could see, very well.
10 Q. Thank you. Can you explain this by reference to an example, to
11 make it clearer to us? Thank you.
12 A. Yes. Let us suppose we're looking in the grave, and an
13 archaeologist reports that he or she has found a wallet; not with a body
14 but just a wallet. Then the position of that wallet would be -- to give
15 you an example, the position of that wallet would be recorded by the
16 surveyor, the scene-of-crime officer would assign a reference number to
17 that wallet -- and in our logs they begin with "A" for "Artefact." They
18 would assign the letter A for "Artefact." The senior crime officer would
19 then take possession of this object and put it into a bag, enter the
20 details into the log, and then it would be put in the van that was kept
21 locked. And then all those -- all the bodies and all the objects were
22 sent down to the morgue in Visoko in this locked van.
23 So it's a case of the scene-of-crime officer allocating a number,
24 the surveyor surveying where this object is found -- I think I missed out
25 the photographer. The photographer takes a picture of the object before
Page 5675
1 it's moved, and then the scene-of-crime officer takes possession of the
2 object, enters it into the log, and then puts it in a secure place. And
3 then there's an official hand-over of material periodically to the morgue
4 in Visoko.
5 Q. Thank you, Professor, for this example.
6 Can you give us an illustration of where you realised that
7 something had went wrong? In this instance, you refer to a wallet that
8 you retrieved which you didn't know who it belonged to. And was there a
9 an example where something had gone wrong, that you encountered a
10 difficulty?
11 A. I think I'll have to ask you, General Tolimir, to be a bit more
12 specific about what you mean by "something had gone wrong." I don't
13 quite understand what you mean by that. What kind of thing has gone
14 wrong?
15 Q. Thank you. I'll make myself clear. You've just given us an
16 example of how work was supposed to be done. Now, in your work, was
17 there a situation where something was done improperly and it had to be
18 remedied so that the procedure could be finished in a proper way,
19 something that would have a bearing on your work? Thank you.
20 A. I can't remember any mistake that was made that was of any
21 consequence to the integrity of the evidence. There may have been some
22 minor breaches of the protocols. And, incidentally, the protocols were
23 given to all the workers at the site, and they are in my reports. I
24 don't know of a systematic, that is, long-lasting, breach of those
25 protocols or -- and I can't remember any mistake which at the time I
Page 5676
1 thought was of any consequence.
2 Q. Thank you, Professor. Can you tell me now, was it your
3 responsibility - and if it wasn't yours, whose was it - to establish the
4 cause and manner of death of an individual found in a grave? Thank you.
5 A. The responsibility for establishing the cause and manner of death
6 was done not at the site. It was done by the anthropologist and
7 pathologist in the morgue. Nevertheless, I was able to see on many
8 occasions -- for instance, if someone has a bullet through their head, I,
9 not as an expert, will assume that that is the cause of death, and I
10 might even write it in my notes, but I wouldn't have established it in
11 the strict -- in the strict sense. That wasn't my job.
12 Q. Thank you, Professor. I asked you this bearing in mind the
13 example you gave in your examination-in-chief, where you established that
14 the individuals were murdered, killed, because they had ligatures and
15 blindfolds, and it had to do with whether this was established at the
16 site or whether it was established subsequently in the morgue. But
17 you've understood my question. Thank you.
18 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, was that a question?
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. No, I'm happy with the
20 answer the professor gave. I just said why I put this question, because
21 it had to do with what he said in the direct examination. And if he has
22 comments on it, very well. If not, that's fine also.
23 JUDGE FLUEGGE: No explanation needed. I just wanted to ask you
24 if that was a question. You said, No, and then I can say: Carry on,
25 please.
Page 5677
1 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.
2 Q. Can you tell us, did you write reports and analyses in the course
3 of exhumations or did you write only the reports that were adduced here
4 as evidence before this Court? Thank you.
5 A. I wrote no reports in the course of the work. We -- we filled
6 out the logs for each item, and they would have been handed over to the
7 morgue, but I did not write interim reports, except in the one case of
8 that Grave L at Glogova. That's my answer.
9 Q. Thank you. Can we have your comments in relation to the question
10 I'm about to put to you? The reports that were presented here and
11 admitted into evidence, what was the basis on which you wrote them? Were
12 those notes, analyses that you made back in the relevant time in the
13 course of exhumations, or were there any other bases for the reports that
14 were presented here? Thank you.
15 A. I know what you mean. Yes, well, in the course of being at the
16 site, I kept my own personal notes about the work, and they assisted me
17 in writing up the reports. Together with the photographs and the logs, I
18 was able to write up my reports. My reports are fairly brief, and they
19 really are an explanation, if you like, for the photographs that were
20 taken and the -- and the logs, themselves. There were body sheets which
21 I -- which were -- of which I give an illustration, I think, in most of
22 the reports, which were filled out by my team, and I had those available
23 to me when I wrote my reports, but there were no -- there were no other
24 documents.
25 Q. Thank you. And in each and every report of yours, there exists a
Page 5678
1 protocol on the procedure of exhumations. Please tell me, is there one
2 protocol which applied to each and every exhumation carried out or were
3 there different protocols applying to different exhumations? Thank you.
4 A. Yes, the answer to your question is yes. There were different
5 protocols. They evolved in the light of what we saw as the needs, so
6 that they do differ slightly from year to year. And the final protocol
7 that I wrote and which the team had to study, the final protocol was the
8 one we used at Glogova in the year 2000. There are slight differences.
9 We would -- if I could just explain. We set ourselves in the --
10 at the start of the work, over-ambitiously, we wanted to photograph every
11 shell case that we found. At the end of the work, we were recording
12 them, but we were not photographing each shell case. Those sorts of
13 differences that would allow us to get the work accomplished without
14 compromising the quality of the evidence.
15 Q. Thank you, Professor. The exhumation procedure was envisaged
16 ahead of work, was it not, but were there modifications made as the work
17 progressed, and can you give us examples? Thank you.
18 Let me put it simply: Were there instances where one had to
19 depart from the protocol in the process of exhumation, or modify it?
20 Thank you.
21 A. We made modifications to the procedure of exhumation; that is,
22 strictly speaking, the removal of the bodies, but I'm not sure -- I can't
23 remember that these were modifications of the protocols. But if I can
24 just explain.
25 The general procedure is to remove a body that has soft tissue as
Page 5679
1 soon as possible, because it decomposes and there's loss of evidence once
2 it's re-exposed to oxygen. So they tended to be removed one at a time,
3 and we were able to survey the bodies -- the body that we removed so we
4 would afterwards know its relationship to other bodies in the grave.
5 At Kozluk, we made a change in one place, where we decided that
6 we were looking at a single layer of bodies lying on a surface. About 15
7 bodies were emerging, and we thought that this should be left -- they
8 should be left on this surface for photography to show what the view
9 would have been like before they were covered up.
10 Now, I have to say, without consulting the protocols, I couldn't
11 say whether that was a breach of the protocols or a change in the
12 protocols. I don't think so. But it was the only change to the general
13 rule that you remove the bodies when you find them and work out their
14 relationship to each other from the three-dimensional survey that we did.
15 But at Kozluk, in one area we left the bodies exposed. We did uncover
16 more than one without removing the previous ones. But that's the only
17 change I can think of.
18 Q. Thank you. My legal assistant says that on page 31, you said "15
19 bodies," and the transcript states "50." Line 21.
20 A. That can't be. Not -- the particular site -- area I'm talking
21 about is Kozluk, and you'd need to direct me to my report on Kozluk
22 because it's only a matter of 15, 1-5, bodies. Where in the transcript
23 is this?
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. It was an
25 interpretation problem, and it's now corrected. Thank you.
Page 5680
1 Can we now call up Exhibit P872 in e-court. It's Mr. Wright's
2 report on the exhumations carried out in Eastern Bosnia in 1998, which is
3 dated the 12th of May, 1999.
4 You'll be able to see it here in e-court.
5 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
6 Q. My question has to do with the cover page. The exhumations were
7 conducted in 1998, as the heading, or as the title states. Now, at the
8 bottom, the date is the 12th of May, 1999. This is the date when the
9 report was filed?
10 A. It was the date that I submitted the report to the -- to ICTY.
11 That was my date, when I finished it.
12 Q. Thank you. Is there anything else that would speak as to the
13 difference when the exhumations were carried out and the subsequent
14 five-month period when the actual report was submitted? Is there any
15 other reason for this, other than the formal reasons; the time required
16 for the report to be typed and so on? What would be the reason for the
17 submission of the report five months later?
18 A. I can't remember in detail why. I came to ICTY in, I think,
19 February 1999 to examine the photographs and to go through the logs. I
20 then went back to Sydney
21 what else I was doing at that time, but I can't think of any special
22 reason for the interval of time.
23 Q. Thank you. Can you please tell us, since you worked in the
24 Ukraine
25 the report some months or years later, after the fact? Thank you.
Page 5681
1 A. Well, I've never written reports some years after the fact,
2 General Tolimir, but this -- one reason I can -- a specific reason which
3 now comes to my mind is that we were unable to estimate exactly, at the
4 excavation, how many bodies there were in each grave. That work was done
5 at the morgue, and it was done after we'd completed our work. And you
6 will notice that I include in my report estimates of the number of bodies
7 that I received from the morgue. That would have been one reason why I
8 couldn't have hurried to write my report, because I would -- wanted to
9 wait until the work at the morgue was completed. Other than that, I
10 can't comment further. I don't remember ICTY telling me to get on with
11 it. They were satisfied with the report being received in May.
12 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, I think we need the first break now.
13 The tapes must be rewound, and we -- on technical reasons, we must have a
14 break now.
15 We will resume a quarter past 4.00.
16 --- Recess taken at 3.48 p.m.
17 --- On resuming at 4.19 p.m.
18 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Yes, Mr. Tolimir.
19 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.
20 Q. My next question is: The content of the report you wrote on the
21 Ukraine
22 that you presented on the results of your work in Bosnia and Herzegovina
23 or did you present the material in both reports in the same way? Thank
24 you.
25 A. In the case of the Ukraine
Page 5682
1 statement. It was very brief and not like the reports that I have
2 presented to ICTY. The Ukrainian reports were two- or three-page
3 statements of the basic observations that I've made, so there was a
4 difference.
5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Professor.
6 Can we now look at page 8 of this document in the Serbian and
7 page 7 in the English, for illustration purposes. This is the document
8 that we already are looking at in the e-court. Thank you. Page 7 in the
9 English, please. Thank you. And page 6 in the Serbian version, please.
10 Page 8 in the English, can we look at that, please. Thank you.
11 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
12 Q. If you have the page in the English, perhaps you can explain this
13 term "probed graves." If you can explain what that means.
14 JUDGE FLUEGGE: No, we don't have it. And I think now we have a
15 certain page 8, but it is not corresponding to the other one, I suppose,
16 to the B/C/S page. We need the correct reference. Otherwise, the
17 witness can't comment on that.
18 Mr. Gajic.
19 MR. GAJIC: [Interpretation] Mr. President, as Mr. Tolimir said in
20 the beginning, it's page 8 in the Serbian. It was on the screen in the
21 very beginning. Yes, this is the page.
22 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much.
23 Mr. Tolimir.
24 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation] Thank you.
25 Q. And now we can see where you're talking about, for example, in
Page 5683
1 paragraph CR01, where you say:
2 "Probed on the 16th of June, 1998."
3 Are you able to explain to us what it means, to probe a grave?
4 Thank you.
5 A. I understand your question, General Tolimir.
6 Let me first say that we exhumed seven graves. But on the aerial
7 images that we had, there was disturbed soil in several other places, and
8 in 21 of those places we were able to find the outlines of a grave, and
9 we removed soil from that grave until we had at least -- we had the
10 remains of at least two people, and they were generally near the top.
11 And then we call that "probing." It's not the sticking in of a probe,
12 but it's the testing by means of using -- by using the mechanical
13 excavator to see whether this disturbed ground has bodies in it, and not
14 just one, but more than -- two or more. But we didn't remove them. We
15 filled the holes that we had made. We filled them up with soil, and all
16 of those disturbed patches of soil in which we found bodies are listed in
17 this report that I wrote in 1999.
18 That's -- is that an adequate answer for you?
19 Q. Thank you. I'm satisfied with the answer. I just want to ask
20 you: When you are probing a grave, is it possible that you would injure
21 or disturb body parts? Perhaps you can later provide exact definitions
22 as I go on putting questions to you. Thank you.
23 A. Yes. The -- first of all, I was always there, so that I would
24 immediately see if the backhoe was disturbing clothes. Normally, you
25 find clothes before you find the body. There is a risk of damage, not
Page 5684
1 big damage, but of breaking a bone in that process. But the operator of
2 the backhoe was extremely experienced. He could tell by the feel of the
3 bucket in the soil whether he was touching anything hard or whether he
4 was just touching soil. So I would say, in general, we did not break
5 things, certainly not seriously.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Professor.
7 Can we now look at page 17 in the Serbian of this document, and
8 page 15 in the English. We are interested in a definition of "body
9 parts."
10 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
11 Q. And while we're waiting for this to show up, Professor, if you
12 would just tell us whose responsibility it was to establish the minimum
13 number of bodies in a grave. Was this assessment made at the scene or
14 was this something that was determined in a different way?
15 A. In answering that, I just want to explain my own experience at --
16 in the Ukraine
17 In the Ukraine
18 The bodies were in position -- all the bones were in position because
19 they were undisturbed.
20 But when I had to deal with the graves in Bosnia, we kept finding
21 a leg which was not connected to any other part of the body, a foot in a
22 shoe. In particular, at these secondary graves, we had problems in
23 defining how many individuals we had, and we didn't even attempt to come
24 up with a number because of the risks of double-counting individuals when
25 they were broken up. So that process of estimating the number of
Page 5685
1 individuals was left to the people who studied the remains in the morgue.
2 I had a rough idea of how many bodies there might be in each grave, but I
3 haven't used those estimates. I have used, in my report, numbers that I
4 was given after the analysis had been completed at the morgue.
5 Q. Thank you. Since each part of the body - an arm, a leg - is
6 defined as "the body," is it then the case that after the examinations at
7 the morgue, it was definitely established what it means to have the whole
8 body? Are individual parts also marked as body parts when they're
9 excavated, and then in the morgue it is established what goes with what?
10 My question actually is: Are body parts that were found, individual body
11 parts, also given marks or numbers and then sent to the morgue as bodies?
12 Thank you.
13 A. No. We had a protocol established, and it's mentioned, for the
14 various sites, that we have three categories when we make an entry into
15 the log. We have a body, that is, so many remains of that individual are
16 present that we know we're dealing with an individual, and we're not
17 going to -- well, there is an individual there because so much is
18 present. But then we have in our logs "body parts," which we used the
19 initials "BP," and that would be a leg or a forearm, but we wouldn't -- I
20 would not have counted those as bodies. They have a separate category,
21 body parts, which we define in the protocols.
22 In addition, we occasionally found just one bone, say a toe bone,
23 and they were just not counted as body parts but were put into a bag
24 where we just have general -- general bones that are not -- that are
25 individual bones, not body parts.
Page 5686
1 So there is -- in the log, bodies and body parts are entered
2 separately, and then there is a bag for each site for which an isolated
3 bone found here or there is put.
4 Q. Thank you, Professor. I'm asking you this because in some
5 reports that are presented before this Tribunal, we have the case that
6 one person was identified in a number of graves and was identified
7 several times, and then it may appear that we're talking about two
8 persons instead of one. Are you able to tell us something about ways to
9 avoid something like this from happening? How did you deal with this
10 question in order to prevent this kind of thing from happening when you
11 are presenting your report? Thank you.
12 A. Well, in my -- in my own reports -- in my own reports, that is,
13 the ones I wrote myself, I didn't, in this document we have in front of
14 us, offer any suggestion how many bodies there were. That was
15 information I got from the morgue. Our responsibility was to keep
16 separate items which were definitely -- definitely separate; that is, if
17 we found a leg and then over here we found an arm, we didn't assume that
18 it belonged to the same individual. We just called them body parts and
19 sent them down to the morgue.
20 I -- at that point, my responsibility ends, or how they operate
21 at the morgue I can't say, because I went to the morgue on two or three
22 occasions, but not to work there; just to make a general courtesy call.
23 But the numbers that are in -- the numbers that are on page 32 of that
24 report are not my counting. They are estimates that I was given by
25 Mr. Baryabar after he had analysed the bodies at the morgue, those
Page 5687
1 numbers in this table.
2 If we can look at page 32 in the English.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we please look at page 32,
4 because the witness is referring to that page. So if we can see that
5 page in e-court. Thank you.
6 A. Are we ready to proceed? Yes.
7 That table, it's not my counting of bodies and body parts. Those
8 numbers there were given to me by the morgue after they'd analysed the
9 remains that we had sent down.
10 Q. Thank you. Do you have any other comments on what is written
11 here, since you didn't write that, that would not correspond to the
12 manner in which you presented certain issues? Thank you.
13 A. I'm sorry, I'll have to ask you to clarify that question. I
14 don't understand the question that you're asking me as it's translated.
15 Q. Thank you. You just said that you didn't present this table the
16 way it's been presented on this page that you asked for us to look at.
17 So do you have your own way or your own style in which you would present
18 this? Are there any differences in the way you would present it and the
19 way this is presented? Thank you.
20 A. I understand what you're asking now.
21 This is my table. I went -- I spoke with Mr. Baryabar, and I
22 said, We excavated completely these seven secondary graves, and we sent
23 the remains to the morgue. What do you have to tell me about the number
24 of individuals? And then I included them in that table. So -- but I
25 can't -- I can't comment on the method by which the morgue arrived at
Page 5688
1 those numbers because I wasn't part of that work. I have used numbers
2 provided to me by the experts working in the morgue.
3 Q. Thank you. Yes, it's clear to me now.
4 Before I put my next question: The term "body part," was that
5 defined before the exhumations began or did you define this particular
6 term at some later stage?
7 A. It's difficult for me to remember, but I think it was probably in
8 1997, at the excavations of Brcko, which have nothing to do with this
9 case, but at that site, we had this problem of graves that had been
10 disturbed, and we were finding limbs. And I'm confident that we would
11 have, in 1997, worked out the importance of not counting each piece as a
12 body, but distinguishing the parts from the whole bodies. That's my
13 memory, but I -- that we addressed that question in 1997 and then would
14 have carried our experience over to 1998.
15 Q. Thank you, Professor. When one reads your report, it's a little
16 bit unclear in that area that touches upon these differences, when a
17 group of post-mortem remains is considered a complete body and when it is
18 considered as body parts. So would you be able to explain to us that
19 difference, when a group of remains is considered to be a complete body
20 and when a group of remains is considered to be body parts? Thank you.
21 A. I think I do deal with that question in my protocols. I have my
22 own copy of the report here. If you could just give me a minute to see
23 whether I included the protocols in this report. Yes, just excuse me a
24 minute while I find it.
25 On the English -- in the English version on page 13, I don't
Page 5689
1 define what constitutes a -- I talk about a fairly complete body and I
2 talk about body parts. A fairly complete body is one that has enough
3 bones to be certain that another part of a body could not be confused.
4 In other words, if I have more than half the bones, then I have a fairly
5 complete body. If I have less than half, I run the risk of then finding
6 the other part of that individual and saying I've got two individuals.
7 So before we call a thing a body, we have -- we were fairly -- we were
8 confident that we could not count that body twice, though -- and call it
9 a second body. But I agree that I don't -- I don't, in my protocols -- I
10 do make assumptions in the protocols that are not spelled out.
11 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Professor, if you would like to look at the
12 screen, is that the page you are referring to?
13 THE WITNESS: Is that page 13, Your Honour? No, it's not the
14 page I'm referring to. It's the one after -- that is the page, yes.
15 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much.
16 THE WITNESS: Yes, I'm referring to that page 13 in English,
17 where I talk about a fairly complete body and what's to be done with
18 that.
19 And the point about what was considered to be a fairly complete
20 body is that a body sheet was filled out for that body, showing what
21 parts were present. An example is given in my report on page 37 in the
22 English version.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May we look at page 37, please, so
24 that the witness can use it. Thank you.
25 THE WITNESS: No, it's not that page. It's the one before.
Page 5690
1 That's the one.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, thank you.
3 THE WITNESS: Now, here you can see that the person who excavated
4 this body at the secondary grave Zeleni Jadar 5 has answered some
5 questions about whether the body has been surveyed, the way in which the
6 body lies, is it extended or is it crouched or mixed up, certain other
7 observations, and then at the bottom you'll see a little sketch which
8 gives a quick idea of how the body lies. And you can see, from that,
9 what's present and what's missing. You can see it from that, but you can
10 see it better -- and I don't have an example in my report, but you can
11 see it better in the photographs that were taken of each of the bodies.
12 So I would have no hesitation in saying that the person who said that
13 this was a body on page 37 was correct. And if it had just been a leg or
14 an arm, or even two legs, they would have been given the title of "body
15 part," and one of these sheets would not have been filled out.
16 So these sheets -- counting these sheets would give you a rough
17 idea of how many bodies there were, but the final analysis, as you
18 suggested, of what might belong to what would have to be done afterwards.
19 What body parts might belong to this body would have to be done
20 afterwards. And I suppose, in the question you asked me about the DNA
21 results, that was a case where maybe a body was incompletely removed from
22 a primary grave. We found examples in Kozluk, for instance, where an
23 individual's left leg had been taken away when the grave was disturbed,
24 but the rest of the body was there. There would be many explanations for
25 why there were body parts which -- linked together, by means of DNA, but
Page 5691
1 come from different sites.
2 Q. Since we have this image before us on the right-hand side, where
3 feet and hands were circled: If you found a body without hands or feet,
4 would you have considered the remains to be a complete body or body
5 parts? Thank you.
6 A. Yes, I understand what you're asking.
7 If we found a body which was complete, except that it didn't have
8 feet or hands, we would have called it a body. We'd have called it not a
9 complete body, but we'd have called it a body for the purposes of our
10 entries into the log, and a sheet like this would have been filled out.
11 If we found a hand on its own, obviously, we wouldn't have called that a
12 body. But I can't remember a specific case of a body which had all
13 its -- both its hands and both its feet missing, but there might have
14 been.
15 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Judge Nyambe has a question for the witness.
16 JUDGE NYAMBE: At page 44 of today's transcript, lines 10 to 14,
17 you state that:
18 "Where an individual's left leg had been taken away when the
19 grave was disturbed, but the rest of the body was there, there would be
20 many explanations for why there would be body parts which -- linked
21 together, by means of DNA
22 Focusing specifically on this example you've given, I wonder
23 whether you can venture to explain how only a leg would be taken away and
24 the rest of the body was left in the grave.
25 THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honour.
Page 5692
1 The site I was referring to specifically is the site of Kozluk,
2 where the bodies were lying out on the surface, and the edge of that
3 distribution of bodies had been cut through by a bulldozer and one leg
4 had been taken away, and -- the bodies that were in the line of the
5 bulldozer had been taken away, but those on the left had been left
6 behind. So that would be one reason why, if I understand General Tolimir
7 correctly, the DNA
8 more than one grave, that would be one example how that might come about.
9 Another example of how it might come about would be that
10 different truckloads of bodies were taken away from the primary grave to
11 different secondary graves. That's why I said there are several possible
12 explanations for the example that he asked me about.
13 JUDGE NYAMBE: Thank you.
14 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey.
15 MR. McCLOSKEY: Your Honour, 65 ter 638 may be very specific to
16 answer the Judge's question on this point. Of course, I could bring it
17 up in redirect, but I'm hoping I won't have any redirect.
18 JUDGE FLUEGGE: At this point in time, the answer was sufficient
19 enough. Thank you very much.
20 Carry on, please, Mr. Tolimir.
21 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.
22 Q. Professor, in order for us to fully understand how you treated
23 body parts and a whole body, please look at paragraph 2, where, amongst
24 other things, it is said that an excavator would scoop up bodies. That's
25 page 18 in Serbian and 15 in English. Thank you.
Page 5693
1 Thank you. I will be mindful of having to speak slowly. Thank
2 you.
3 A. We're looking at page 14 in the English, not 15.
4 Q. That's right. We were looking for page 15 in English and page 17
5 in Serbian.
6 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Please, page 15 --
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] We've had it on our screens once
8 before.
9 Thank you, we have it now.
10 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
11 Q. This is the section "Definition of Body Parts."
12 JUDGE FLUEGGE: We don't have it in English yet.
13 Thank you. Now it's page 15.
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Let us look at paragraph 2 now,
15 where it is stated -- you state:
16 "A decision had to be made on how to remove, spatially record,
17 and label these disarticulated parts. To aid the exhumation work, the
18 parts were therefore given the name 'body part.' The definition of any
19 particular body part was made by the individual excavator."
20 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
21 Q. Based on what I've just read, I'd like you to answer this:
22 What -- how do you define a retrieved body part? What do you imply by
23 it?
24 A. I don't imply anything in terms of how it got into that state.
25 Merely by calling it a body part I'm not coming up with any explanation.
Page 5694
1 It's an empirical observation that here is the bones of a leg, and we
2 look around and there's no pelvis, there's no other body to which it can
3 belong. Now, how it got into that state is a -- is a secondary question
4 that needs to be explained, I agree. But we define a body part in an
5 empirical -- in an observational way, not interpreting how it got into
6 that state. So a leg is a leg, and that's a body part.
7 It sometimes happened that we did subsequently think that a body
8 a little bit further away which is missing a leg probably -- that the leg
9 belonged to that body, but we would not have then -- we'd have left that
10 to the morgue to decide. And I did provide the morgue with survey data
11 that would assist them in the three-dimensional space of the grave to
12 work out, well, which pelvis is closest to this leg in three-dimensional
13 space within the grave. That might help speed up their process of
14 reconstruction of whole bodies, but to call it a body part is not to
15 explain how it got into that state. It just is an isolated part of the
16 body that is found.
17 Q. Thank you, Professor. A moment ago, in answer to Her Honour
18 Judge Nyambe's question, you said how it was possible that a body part
19 such as a foot would be -- would disappear as a body part because it
20 would be dismembered from the rest of the body by an excavator. Since
21 these bodies lay on the surface for several months -- Mr. Ruez, himself,
22 testified that he had found 600 bodies lying on the surface unprotected
23 and which had been there for several months. Now, if an animal were to
24 take a body part, how would that be defined in the morgue? In what way
25 would you be able to complete the identification process of a body?
Page 5695
1 Thank you.
2 A. Well --
3 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey. Before you answer, Mr. McCloskey.
4 MR. McCLOSKEY: This is a complete misstatement of the evidence.
5 There are -- there is nothing in the record, nor Mr. Ruez's testimony,
6 regarding any bodies from the mass graves associated with any of the work
7 of Professor Wright where the bodies were thought to be on the surface
8 for that long. So this has nothing to do with this witness's testimony,
9 and yet he, of course, can't know that because he's not party to
10 Mr. Ruez's testimony. Therefore, I object to the misstatement and
11 mis-characterisation of the evidence, as it would not provide us any
12 answer.
13 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Taking it into account, the statement and the
14 objection of Mr. McCloskey, are you able to answer the core of the
15 question of Mr. Tolimir?
16 THE WITNESS: Yes.
17 There's a misunderstanding of my previous statement. The bodies
18 that I was talking about at Kozluk were found on a surface, but that
19 surface was buried under soil. The floor of this court is a surface, and
20 things can lie on the surface. But then in the case of Kozluk, they had
21 all been covered up with soil, and we had to excavate before we found
22 that surface. That's what I meant. They had not been exposed to
23 predators or the elements.
24 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you.
25 Mr. Tolimir, carry on.
Page 5696
1 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
2 Q. Professor, it was not my intention to put provocative questions
3 or ill-intentional questions. I wanted to learn from you, as a
4 professor, how you would complete an identification process of a body
5 missing body parts which could not be found on the site for whatever
6 reasons. Maybe they were taken away by animals. I mentioned Mr. Ruez
7 because he said that he found 600 victims in Kamenica and they were
8 unprotected. They could have been taken away, their body parts, by
9 either domestic animals or wild animals.
10 So how would the identification process of an individual be
11 completed, and how would this be formulated in a report after the
12 analysis you made and the analysis the offices in the morgue made?
13 So my -- I was well-intentioned in putting this question, because
14 we have encountered such problems in this courtroom. Thank you.
15 A. No, I understand, General Tolimir, and I think there was a
16 misunderstanding, because in English we use the words "the" and "a," and
17 I said they were found, at Kozluk, on a surface, and that's a different
18 meaning from "the surface" in English. It may be that something was
19 lost. I know a bit of Russian and I know that there's often confusion
20 because in Russian there isn't the word "the" and not the word "a" and
21 it's possible that's where the confusion arose.
22 But I had no difficulty in interpreting this site at Kozluk,
23 which is not part of this report, as having -- that the movement -- the
24 moving away of the leg was due to machinery cutting through the bodies,
25 not that a predator could have got at the site. In fact, I don't
Page 5697
1 remember -- the only site where bodies were very close to the surface,
2 that I saw, was at Ravnice, but I wasn't responsible, I wasn't managing
3 that work, but they were found very close to the surface. But we did not
4 see evidence of chewing of the bones. And given the stratification at
5 the site, we got clear evidence that as soon as the bodies had been put
6 into the graves, they were covered up with soil, so not subsequently
7 disturbed by predators, with one -- I think one exception, that something
8 had burrowed into the bones in a very limited area in Cancari Road 3, a
9 bone had been pulled up to the surface, but the soil was covering the
10 rest of the bodies.
11 Q. Thank you, Professor. The question I put to you did not refer to
12 your report. I was merely presenting you with an example. I didn't
13 refer to your report. I wanted your expert opinion as to how one would
14 proceed when a body is found on the surface with some body parts missing,
15 and I merely wanted to know how this would be treated as an occurrence.
16 Thank you.
17 A. Is that a question, General Tolimir, to ask how I would treat a
18 body that was on the surface?
19 Q. Thank you. Yes, that's my question. How would this be treated
20 in a report that we would read here in the courtroom, or would this pose
21 difficulties in the final identification, causing it to last for 15 or 16
22 years before the relevant body parts were found? Thank you.
23 A. Bodies that are left on the surface certainly pose problems for
24 forensic investigators, because animals like foxes, often wild cats, and
25 birds will pull the bodies around, and so that material will be
Page 5698
1 distributed over a big area. But I never met bodies on the surface. In
2 my work, the bodies were always buried.
3 Q. Thank you, Professor. Tell us, please, when it comes to the
4 graves, themselves, to what extent does the pressure exerted by soil --
5 as there would be the natural depositing of soil, as well as perhaps
6 machinery driving across the surface, to what extent would that have an
7 impact on the damage inflicted on the bodies? Thank you.
8 A. Well, pressure of soil and pressure of vehicles going across a
9 site might well cause damage to the bodies, but not disassociation. The
10 parts of the body would remain undisturbed, but there might be
11 compression of the rib cage and so the ribs would be broken. There's
12 often compression of the skull so that the skull is distorted. But all
13 the bits will be there, unlike the case where bones are on the surface
14 and a fox has pulled the bones apart. Provided they're in place, the
15 pressure of the soil, the pressure of other bodies, will cause
16 compression, but not disarticulation.
17 Q. Thank you. You have already said that the bodies and artefacts
18 retrieved in the graves could not have been exposed to considerable
19 damage by the earth-moving machinery and the probing that had been done.
20 You said that damage caused through these activities was minimal. Was
21 there any damage which could have had a decisive bearing on the ultimate
22 identification process?
23 A. If you mean damage caused by the exhumation team -- if you mean
24 damage caused by the exhumation team, then there would be a very small
25 amount of damage. They worked with trowels and brushes to expose the
Page 5699
1 bones.
2 The main problem to identification, the main -- identification of
3 what is a body, I mean, the main problem was caused by the fact that the
4 secondary graves contained bodies that had been brought from somewhere
5 else, and in the course of their excavation as a primary grave, the
6 transporting of them to the secondary grave, and the dumping of them in
7 the secondary grave, there was considerable disarticulation of individual
8 skeletons, and certainly the clarity of the analysis that could be done
9 is affected by that. If the bodies are -- for instance, when I worked in
10 the Ukraine
11 lying exactly as they died. The pathologist didn't even need -- in the
12 case of most of the 550 bodies that we uncovered, the pathologist could
13 work on the site, and then they were not -- the remains were then
14 reburied.
15 So in primary graves that are not disturbed, there's very little
16 loss of evidence and association, but obviously in secondary graves there
17 will be varying degrees of disarticulation of the bodies, though the
18 methods used in the morgue for coming up with what's known as counting
19 the minimum number of individuals, that method tries to minimise the
20 double-counting of individuals and so on. It's a technique used.
21 Counting the most frequently-occurring bone and saying that is the
22 minimum number of individuals, that seeks to alleviate the problem of the
23 secondary graves that contain bodies and body parts. But I didn't do
24 that. That's what they did.
25 Q. Thank you. Tell us, if it is presented through reports adduced
Page 5700
1 here that such and such a number of victims or mortal remains were
2 identified, so if that's established in these reports, that there was
3 such and such a number of remains, following your analysis, and if it is
4 established, once the analysis is done in the morgue, that the number of
5 individuals involved is different, how is this addressed, and how is it
6 established where the difference in these numbers originated from, if you
7 understand what I'm asking you? If not, I'll put my question again.
8 A. No, I understand what you're asking me, General Tolimir.
9 I think the main point I would make is I did not establish the
10 number of bodies or use any estimate that we came up with in the field.
11 I had an idea of how many bodies there might be, but that doesn't figure
12 in my reports and I've never tendered it officially. The numbers in my
13 reports from the secondary graves, and the primary graves, for that
14 matter, in other reports, are derived from the estimates made by the
15 morgue, because it was only in Kozluk that I could say, in the case of
16 about 300 bodies, that we could just count them as you would count
17 individual corpses on the ground, because they hadn't been in the main
18 part of the Kozluk site, which was a primary grave disturbed. But for
19 the secondary graves, I don't try anywhere in my report to come up with
20 an estimate, so there can't be any discrepancy between any numbers I
21 report and any numbers that the morgue reports, because I've used only
22 the information derived from the morgue after their analysis. I have
23 never presented an analysis of the number of individuals, except for what
24 the morgue has told me, for that table that we looked at.
25 Q. Thank you, Professor. In the course of exhumations of all the
Page 5701
1 artefacts you retrieved, was anything discarded, such as pieces of
2 clothing or pieces of broken bottles that you referred to, or was
3 everything sent on for analysis?
4 A. In the case of the dam site, where there were no complete bodies,
5 there were just isolated body parts, there were also lots of scattered
6 items of clothing in the re-filling of the disturbed grave, and I -- we
7 looked at them from the point of view of keeping those which might assist
8 with the personal identification of the person, and I think there we did
9 discard some. But in the graves that are listed in that table, no, we
10 would have kept the clothes and sent them down.
11 By "personal identification," I mean that a sweater which has
12 been hand-knitted and is found with a body, it might well be that a wife
13 or a mother would recognise that sweater, but if it was just in the
14 filling of the grave, on its own, a pair of jeans, commercially-made
15 clothing, I think in the case of Kozluk we just put them all together. I
16 can't remember if we discarded them or not. But certainly for the graves
17 we're talking about, the seven -- the seven exhumed secondary graves, we
18 would have sent the material down to the morgue even if we found a bit of
19 clothing that wasn't being worn, as it were, by a body --
20 Q. Thank you. For the record, tell us what you did with the
21 material that you put in a heap, that you did not send on for analysis.
22 What became of that material?
23 A. It only applied to Kozluk, and I can't remember what we did with
24 it. I'd have to go back and consult my notes or ask other people. But
25 I think it's true to say that we did not keep all the isolated items of
Page 5702
1 clothing that were found at Kozluk, but we certainly did at all the later
2 exhumations where we were dealing with bodies. So I can't answer your
3 question, I'm afraid, without doing some research.
4 You also asked -- the second part of your previous question was
5 what we did with the other artefacts, other than clothing, such as the
6 glass, and I think I explicitly stated in my report that we did not keep
7 all the items of glass from Cancari 3. There were thousands of pieces of
8 broken glass mixed up with the bodies, but we certainly kept a sample.
9 Q. Thank you. This is what I'm interested in: Did you make
10 specific notes of all the material found in a grave or did you only make
11 note of items on the basis of which the remains could be identified?
12 Thank you.
13 A. No, the logs, as -- I don't know if the logs have been tendered
14 in evidence. But as you will see from the logs, there is a -- every item
15 is recorded, with the exception of the fragments of glass. So for
16 Cancari 3, every artefact would have been entered into the log, with the
17 exception of the glass, and they would have been sent down to the morgue
18 in Visoko.
19 Q. Thank you. And were all the members of your team instructed and
20 trained to submit all the artefacts found in the graves for inspection or
21 examination? Thank you.
22 A. The excavators were already, I think all of them, trained in
23 general forensic procedures. They -- their duty was to report to the
24 scene-of-crime officer the discovery of an artefact. And the
25 scene-of-crime officer would collect the artefact and enter the
Page 5703
1 description into the log -- would take possession of the artefact and
2 enter it into the log. So the sequence of events was very simple, but it
3 did require not the excavator to put the entry into the log but the
4 scene-of-crime officer to put the entry into the log.
5 Q. Thank you. Can you please tell us if the crime technician
6 analysed the traces on the artefacts found in the graves or did he just
7 log them onto some list of artefacts that were found in the grave? Thank
8 you.
9 A. The first -- the answer is the first part of your question. The
10 scene-of-crime officer didn't analyse the artefacts beyond a simple
11 description of what -- a wallet, or a photograph, or a coin; a simple
12 description. That is, analysis at one very superficial level. But any
13 subsequent analysis was done after the artefacts had been handed over to
14 the morgue. We weren't responsible for detailed analysis. We didn't
15 have a field laboratory that would have allowed us to look for traces of
16 other material on the artefacts, no.
17 Q. Thank you, Professor. Can you please tell us if some artefacts
18 were left on the scene or if they were thrown away, were not sent to the
19 morgue or for further analysis; for example, some pieces of clothing,
20 where maybe some samples were taken and sent on but the actual artefacts
21 left behind? Thank you.
22 A. As I explained before, I can't remember the details, but I think
23 that at the dam site isolated items of clothing were examined and then
24 thrown away where they were manufactured and not associated with any
25 bones put back in the grave. That's the only place where any artefacts
Page 5704
1 were discarded. All artefacts were sent down -- recorded and sent down
2 to the morgue, with the exception, as I explained, with the green glass
3 at Cancari Road 3. So no one was allowed to distinguish between what
4 might be useful artefacts and throw away the ones that they thought
5 wouldn't be useful. They were all kept, with those exceptions as I've
6 mentioned.
7 Q. Thank you, Professor. After the entire process was completed,
8 did you notice that there were any, perhaps, missteps that you would not
9 repeat in any subsequent exhumation, based on that experience? Thank
10 you.
11 A. I didn't -- I don't think that in the procedures, as we developed
12 them, there were any missteps, as you call them, that is, systematic
13 problems with the way in which we set about the work. No, I don't think
14 so. And the basis of the -- of the procedures that we developed, many of
15 them are incorporated into a large textbook that's been written on mass
16 graves, written by several people but edited by somebody called
17 Margaret Cox, which is -- and the book is called "A Scientific Excavation
18 of Mass Graves
19 written up by people, myself included, some of them, for that book. I
20 think that the procedures that we developed formed the foundation for the
21 work that was done at Frommel, that World War I site where Australian
22 soldiers were excavated. Two of the people that worked for me in Bosnia
23 were supervisors of those graves. The forensic photographer that we had,
24 who kept a critical visual record, he was the photographer at Frommel.
25 One of the anthropologists that I used was responsible for the analysis
Page 5705
1 of the skeletons.
2 So people have not pointed out to us mistakes in our procedures,
3 systematic mistakes in our procedures. On the contrary, they've been
4 adopted by other people and published.
5 Q. Thank you, Professor. My question would be this, based on what
6 you just said: Looking at it from this perspective, is there anything
7 that was done during the exhumations in Bosnia and Herzegovina
8 would change in order to perfect that procedure in the unfortunate
9 eventuality that these procedures would have to be repeated? Thank you.
10 A. No, definitely no change to the basic procedures. The
11 critical -- and if I can just run through what I regard as basic
12 procedures. That is, that the team that's doing the excavation should
13 have experience; there should be a proper chain of custody for the
14 artefacts; there should be three-dimensional recording of where the
15 artefacts lie; that before a body is removed, its whole outline is clear
16 before the body is lifted, so you don't pull bits off; that there should
17 be a proper photographic record kept; and that notes should be passed --
18 notes about what you did should be passed on to the people who are at the
19 next stage of the process, in the morgue, so they know what went with
20 what in the grave, itself. So those basic procedures, I mean, the basic
21 system, I wouldn't change, no.
22 However, when you find a new grave, some of the details of the
23 procedure will have to be changed, because, for instance, the grave might
24 be waterlogged. None of the graves we excavated in Bosnia, except in
25 Brcko, were waterlogged. There has to be different set of procedures if
Page 5706
1 you have to keep controlling the water and the water has moved bits
2 around. So there will be changes of -- tactical changes at a new site,
3 but not -- I would not see the need for changes to the general strategy
4 that I've outlined in my notes and reports. At least, no one has drawn
5 my attention to a weak procedure that we used or one that should be
6 changed.
7 It may sound presumptuous of me to say that, but I do believe
8 that the system we used and evolved is the proper forensic procedures to
9 be used at mass graves. And many of the people who worked in Bosnia
10 been sought by other investigators and have taken responsible jobs in
11 Iraq
12 Argentina
13 and the teams changed with time, but I was fortunate enough to have other
14 experts to advise me. And an excavation is run, if it's to be run well,
15 is run with a lot of discussion about the procedures that are to be used
16 with the other experts that are doing the work. I don't bully people
17 into agreeing with me at the site. We have robust discussions about what
18 the best way is of doing the work, and I had no dissenting members in the
19 team about the procedures we were using, because they had input,
20 themselves, into how things should be done.
21 If that answers your question, I hope. I don't have -- I don't
22 have a particular part of the work where I say to myself now I wish I'd
23 done it another way. No, I don't.
24 Q. Thank you. You've just said that there were a number of these
25 different experts and different profiles, investigators, but now I'm
Page 5707
1 going to stick to this scene-of-crime officer. Did you think that it
2 would have been a good idea to also have a lab on the scene, a mobile lab
3 which would be stationed close by at some location, where they would be
4 able to perhaps examine some parts, artefacts, before they discarded
5 them; that they could examine them for traces before definitely
6 discarding them on a pile? Thank you.
7 A. As I've explained, there was no systematic discarding of
8 anything, except with the two cases that I've mentioned, the dam and the
9 green -- thousands of bottle parts. So we were not -- it would be
10 misleading to say we were discarding things. I've outlined the two cases
11 where material was not kept, and it was very specific -- the properties
12 were very specific before we did.
13 Would it have been, you asked, a good idea to have a laboratory
14 on the site? Yes, it would, but I would always like to have everything
15 on the site; radiocarbon, the dating laboratory, conservation laboratory.
16 But our objects were limited. The logistics of working in
17 Republika Srpska placed constraints on what we could have, and we had the
18 minimum of what I regarded as essential for doing my particular job. We
19 had that, but we didn't expand into work that could be done better under
20 cover and over a longer period of time by people down at the morgue.
21 But I just want to emphasise we did not have a programme of
22 discarding things, except in those two instances I mentioned. Everything
23 was kept.
24 Q. Thank you, Professor. I have one more question.
25 How were funds secured for all of these activities that were
Page 5708
1 undertaken in the field in order to identify the bodies, including DNA
2 identification? Thank you.
3 A. My understanding is that the -- that the United Nations would get
4 donations from countries to do the field-work that was done in Bosnia
5 Since all the DNA
6 I don't know how ICMP finances itself. I can't answer that question,
7 because they did the DNA
8 Q. Thank you. And do you have any information about the main
9 donors, such as the Commission for Missing Persons? Were they able to
10 exert any kind of influence over the overall exhumation process in the
11 territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina? Thank you.
12 A. Not in my day, no, they had no influence at all. We had a strict
13 rule that nobody from Bosnia-Herzegovina could work at the site, nobody.
14 That even extended to the -- at the dam site, where we had to hire an
15 excavator to remove the rocks, we provided the driver. No one who might
16 have a bias about the interpretation of what we were finding or might be
17 able to interfere with the site from Bosnia-Herzegovina was allowed into
18 the -- into the site, itself. So the commission certainly never
19 interfered with my work.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Professor. We will put
21 the rest of the questions to other persons who were involved in the
22 exhumation process.
23 I would like to thank you very much for testifying on these
24 particular matters and presenting them to us. I would like to wish you a
25 safe return home, and I would like to thank you again for assisting us
Page 5709
1 with your answers.
2 Mr. President, these are all the questions that I have for this
3 witness. I have completed my cross-examination. Thank you.
4 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much, Mr. Tolimir.
5 Mr. McCloskey, do you have re-examination?
6 MR. McCLOSKEY: Just very briefly.
7 Could we pull up 65 ter 638. And this is a -- this will be a
8 photograph that may take a little longer to come up. And I'm going to
9 ask you -- it needs to be turned to the right, a quarter turn to the
10 right. That's it. Can you blow it up? Okay, that's good.
11 Re-examination by Mr. McCloskey:
12 Q. Professor Wright, do you recognise this site?
13 A. Yes. This is the surface -- the buried surface on which these 15
14 or so individuals lay at Kozluk. Behind the bodies, you can see the bank
15 which is not excavated. That's the extension of the soil that covered
16 these bodies.
17 Q. Okay. There's a -- we have this way of marking on the screen
18 here. You should get some help. There's a little pen.
19 JUDGE FLUEGGE: The court usher will assist you.
20 MR. McCLOSKEY:
21 Q. And as best you can, and I know it's a two-dimensional --
22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please.
23 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Before you continue and make the markings, please
24 have a seat. And Mr. Tolimir, please.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I apologise. The professor had
Page 5710
1 already started answering, but I had raised my hand.
2 I would like to ask the Prosecutor to state the grounds for this
3 re-examination. Thank you.
4 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey, can you give us and Mr. Tolimir
5 any reference?
6 MR. McCLOSKEY: Page 32, line 14 to 25, it had to do with bodies
7 at Kozluk, and this is particularly to the question asked by Judge Nyambe
8 that I -- this is the photograph that I had offered to help explain some
9 of what Professor Wright was explaining when he talked about things,
10 which I'll get in for him to answer and not myself.
11 JUDGE FLUEGGE: I think that is sufficient. You should proceed.
12 MR. McCLOSKEY:
13 Q. And can you -- as best you can, can you draw with a line where
14 the actual level of the ground was that you took away from these bodies
15 when you uncovered them? It should leave a line on the screen.
16 A. [Marks]
17 Q. There we go.
18 A. That sort of line.
19 Q. Okay. We see that red horizontal line. So underneath that red
20 line, there would have been what?
21 A. There would have been soil which had been put over the bodies.
22 Q. And can you tell us, how is it that you're able to take soil off
23 bodies like that and leave this scene with -- that looks so undisturbed?
24 How can you do that?
25 A. We're archaeologists. I mean, we know how to remove soil from
Page 5711
1 objects.
2 Q. All right. And can you -- do you see any markings that you have
3 concluded were made by heavy equipment?
4 A. Well, not in -- not in the area of the bodies, but you can see --
5 can I mark this edge here [marks]? This is an edge of a deep trench
6 which cut through the bodies, so I think it's this individual who was
7 complete except for one leg that must have been taken away when this
8 trench was put in before -- was put in and removed other bodies. It cut
9 across this one individual. This area which shows the main line of
10 bodies was totally undisturbed.
11 Q. Okay. Well, we understand that you have taken the soil off what
12 we can see in some instances are skeletons. This dark trench thing that
13 you've outlined, who made that trench?
14 A. Well, it was made before we ever got to the site and was filled
15 in again.
16 Q. And so how did you create that, as archaeologists? Can you just
17 explain that?
18 A. We -- we can tell where a cut -- a trench cut has occurred, and
19 we remove the soil out of that until we get to the bottom. And on the
20 bottom, we found, in fact, the marks -- the buckets of heavy machinery.
21 So I interpret this is the trench which was used to remove bodies, of
22 which it left just this little extension showing the surface on which
23 bodies are now lying. Now --
24 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey, for the sake of the record, it
25 would be helpful if you can ask the witness to identify the different
Page 5712
1 lines with an A, B, C, or something like that.
2 MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you.
3 Q. Could you just do that and tell us which ones you're identifying,
4 so the record is clear?
5 A. I'm not sure, Your Honour, how I do this.
6 For instance --
7 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Just put --
8 THE WITNESS: I'll draw a line around the deep trench and call
9 that A [marks], which cut through the bodies which lie on the surface,
10 which I'll call B [marks], and were then covered up by this soil, which
11 I'll call C [marks]. Is that adequate?
12 JUDGE FLUEGGE: And perhaps the letter D where you supposed that
13 there was a leg taken away.
14 THE WITNESS: Yes, I'll put D [marks], yes.
15 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you.
16 THE WITNESS: I think it was this individual here.
17 In my report, I do include a map of that distribution of bodies,
18 and so it's possible to see, from that, which of these individuals was
19 damaged. But I can't -- without going through my report, I can't add any
20 more at this stage.
21 MR. McCLOSKEY: And I don't think we need to do that at the
22 moment.
23 And so I would offer this photograph into evidence.
24 JUDGE FLUEGGE: It will be received with the markings.
25 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P1015.
Page 5713
1 MR. McCLOSKEY:
2 Q. And just to further clarify: You've testified about what -- I'm
3 not sure -- what grave is this again, just --
4 A. This is Kozluk --
5 Q. Okay. And --
6 A. -- which we did in 1999.
7 Q. From your view of what we're looking at right here, did you make
8 any determination whether any of these individuals were shot where they
9 are now, in-situ?
10 A. We could see some injury that I, you know, inexpert, in a
11 non-expert way, would attribute to gun-shot wounds. The morgue would
12 have determined that finally. But what we did notice, with metal
13 detectors, were that there were bullets embedded in the soil underneath
14 these bodies down to a depth of about 10 centimetres.
15 MR. McCLOSKEY: And we can just put this one into evidence and
16 have another blank of this up there for just one more use.
17 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Before you do that, Judge Nyambe has a question.
18 JUDGE NYAMBE: Can you just clarify for me how -- it's gone.
19 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Can we get the markings back?
20 JUDGE NYAMBE: I can try without the markings.
21 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Oh, it will be possible to have the markings
22 back. P1015.
23 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
24 JUDGE NYAMBE: Okay, let me try without the markings.
25 Can you explain how that trench, or ditch, came about, firstly?
Page 5714
1 THE WITNESS: It was dug by heavy machinery, and there are tooth
2 marks in the bottom. It was done -- it was done before the site was
3 covered over. We saw nothing on the surface except soil that filled up
4 this trench and which covered the bodies.
5 Now, I know, from aerial imagery that I have seen, that this work
6 was done sometime in -- this trench was almost certainly part of the work
7 that was done at the site in October 1995, which would have taken the
8 bodies -- the rest of the bodies away to sites like Cancari Road 3 that
9 had all that broken glass. So what I'm looking at is a trench which is
10 consistent with the removal of the bodies, but I don't have a direct way
11 of dating when that particular trench was put in.
12 JUDGE NYAMBE: Where would this soil to cover the grave have come
13 from? Did it collect naturally or it was put over the bodies?
14 THE WITNESS: No, I'm sure that it was put over the bodies,
15 because none of the bodies showed damage by scavenging animals. The soil
16 that was put over the bodies is a mixture of the -- well, perhaps I could
17 just start again.
18 The whole site is in a sand quarry. There are hollows occurring
19 naturally, and the people from the town would collect sand and silt, but
20 also there was building rubble which covered these bodies that could not
21 have come locally. So some material, including clay and building rubble,
22 must have been brought from a settlement to help cover the bodies. But
23 in general, there's material suitable for covering the bodies all over
24 the place and would just have to be bulldozed over them.
25 JUDGE NYAMBE: Thank you.
Page 5715
1 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey.
2 MR. McCLOSKEY: We can leave this photo.
3 Q. Do you remember or can you tell from this photo whether any of
4 the victims in this photo had ligatures, had their hands tied behind
5 their back?
6 A. I'm relying on my memory. Yes, but the official records would
7 have to be consulted. I think my diagram -- if I can consult my report.
8 Q. Please.
9 A. In my report on Kozluk, which is, I think -- I don't know how you
10 assign the evidence number to say what I'm referring to, but it's got on
11 the front stamped "00912156."
12 Q. Just a moment. We'll get a number. P871, for the record.
13 A. I say in my report we -- the particular exposure that we're
14 looking at in that picture is re-labelled "KK2," and I say some executed
15 bodies lay undisturbed on a surface that was subsequently covered with
16 soil. The limbs -- the reasons for concluding that the bodies were
17 executed on that spot and not dumped there are that limbs are not
18 disarranged, but I don't comment, so far as I can see, on whether these
19 individuals had ligatures or blindfolds, but that would be contained
20 within the logs. I mean, those individuals could be identified. My
21 memory is that some of them had their hands tied behind their back, but I
22 could not be confident in that recollection.
23 Q. Any memory about blindfolds in this site?
24 A. In general at Kozluk, many individuals were blindfolded. And
25 this is merely an extension of the main Kozluk site. I've got the
Page 5716
1 numbers, again, in my report of the number of bodies that we saw which
2 were blindfolded and had ligatures, and I think it was something like
3 42 per cent had ligatures and 20 per cent had blindfolds. That's my
4 approximate -- my memory of the approximate number. Some had both.
5 MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay. Could we just blow this up a couple of
6 times just slowly so we can get a little closer look at this grave?
7 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Could you indicate on which part?
8 MR. McCLOSKEY: I think if we can use the -- the upper half is
9 good. One more shot.
10 Q. Can you just describe what we're seeing there. It's hard, I
11 know, looking at this mass.
12 A. We're seeing complete bodies, most of them lying on their back on
13 a surface which contains, embedded below the bodies, bullets.
14 MR. McCLOSKEY: Professor, I thank you very much. I have no
15 further question.
16 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much.
17 Professor, the Chamber is grateful for your attendance here and
18 that you have helped us with your expertise. You are now free to return
19 to your normal activities, and our thanks again for your attendance.
20 Thank you very much.
21 THE WITNESS: Thank you, Mr. President.
22 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey, is there another witness available
23 for today?
24 MR. McCLOSKEY: No, Mr. President. We -- we've been trying to
25 recover from -- and it's nice to finish a witness a little earlier than
Page 5717
1 normal. We're still recovering from the longer witnesses and the people
2 we've cancelled as a result. But we do think we can fill a good part of
3 tomorrow and the next day with some important video that we've been
4 planning --
5 JUDGE FLUEGGE: No, the witness may -- yes. Thank you very much.
6 Sorry, we just continued with our procedural matters. Goodbye.
7 [The witness withdrew]
8 MR. McCLOSKEY: We have some important video that we have been
9 planning on showing, that we've been discussing this with Mr. Gajic, and
10 as well as an exhibit of stills taken from those videos that we think
11 will be very helpful for the Trial Chamber to help analyse and review
12 those videos. And so we have two investigators that we would start
13 tomorrow with. I think first will be Dusan Janc. And you recall he's in
14 the middle of cross-examination on another topic, but I think we've -- in
15 discussions with Mr. Gajic, that we -- that further cross-examination on
16 that topic can still be, you know, put off for a while. They've got lots
17 of material that we've given to them that I think they're still
18 digesting. So we do have the videos, brief explanations of those videos,
19 authentications of those videos, as we have seen that the Court would
20 like from some of your comments on other documents, so that's our plan
21 for the next two days. But, unfortunately, we don't have anything right
22 now.
23 JUDGE FLUEGGE: I must confess we are not complaining that we are
24 finishing a little bit earlier today.
25 But did I understand you correctly, that tomorrow we will
Page 5718
1 continue with the cross-examination of Mr. Janc, or are you requesting to
2 go back to examination-in-chief first?
3 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yeah, I'm sorry. We're -- we're going to the
4 examination-in-chief on Mr. Janc on the playing of these videos. It was
5 our understanding that you would appreciate a little background on where
6 these videos came from, a bit about what they are, so that they make more
7 sense when you see them, so it was our intention to have Mr. Janc to
8 provide that bit of background and authentication prior to the playing of
9 the videos. And we're not suggesting his continued cross-examination.
10 We have not yet reached an agreement on when that would be appropriate,
11 with the Defence. But we continue to talk about that, and we have lots
12 more witnesses to take up time before we get to that.
13 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir or Mr. Gajic, are you in agreement
14 with this proposal by Mr. McCloskey?
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, we are. We do not know what
16 is to be presented. Thank you.
17 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Then I take it that this will be part -- another
18 part of the examination-in-chief.
19 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Mr. President.
20 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much.
21 We have to adjourn for today, and we will resume tomorrow at
22 quarter past 2.00 in this courtroom.
23 We adjourn.
24 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 5.57 p.m.
25 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 22nd day of
Page 5719
1 September, 2010, at 2.15 p.m.
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