Internationale Criminal Tribunal for the Former

Case No IT-95-14/1




  1. 1 Thursday, 8th January 1998

    2 (10.00 am)

    3 MR. NIEMANN: We are ready to continue, your Honour. Perhaps

    4 the witness might be brought in.

    5 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Good morning.

    6 (Witness entered court)

    7 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Good morning. We are going to continue

    8 now. You may be seated.

    9 A. Thank you.

    10 BAHTIJA SIVRO (continued)

    11 Examined by MR. MARCHESIELLO (continued)

    12 Q. Good morning, your Honours. Good morning, colleagues of

    13 the Defence and good morning, Mr. Sivro. Do you feel

    14 comfortable this morning?

    15 I left you yesterday on the morning of April

    16 19th. What happened, can you tell the court what

    17 happened on that morning? You had been within your

    18 apartment practically in confinement. What did you

    19 expect about yourself, your information about where most

    20 main Muslims were arrested, some of them even killed.

    21 What were your thoughts at that moment?

    22 A. Good morning, I am ready to continue. As I said

    23 yesterday, I was woken up by explosions about 5.00 in

    24 the morning on 16th April 1993. My wife and children

    25 were already awake, looking through the window I could




  2. 1 see in the distance shooting around the town and in the

    2 position of the village of Ahmici, some houses were

    3 already burning and the shooting continued, there was a

    4 lot of smoke and fire. Firing could be heard around

    5 town. I realised that the war in Vitez had started

    6 between the Croatian Defence Council and the Army of

    7 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    8 Q. May I stop you for a moment? Now we are referring to a

    9 subsequent day, the 19th, some days after the beginning

    10 on the 16th. We already know that on the 16th a

    11 conflict had started. Let us go to 19th April.

    12 A. Very well, on the 19th in the evening about 7.00 pm,

    13 I saw through the window that Muslims were being taken

    14 into custody from the surrounding buildings and so it

    15 was the turn of my building. All able-bodied Muslims

    16 were taken into detention, together with myself, I was

    17 among them. At first, we were detained in the building

    18 of the cultural centre at the time, in the basement of

    19 that building.

    20 Q. May I stop you for a moment? So if I understand, you

    21 were not arrested individually, but you were arrested

    22 within a general action, aiming at arresting all male

    23 Muslims in that area; is that not correct?

    24 A. Yes, that is correct.

    25 Q. In your estimation, how many Muslim men were there in




  3. 1 that area at that time?

    2 A. In the town of Vitez itself, there were about 5,000

    3 Muslims.

    4 Q. Where were you taken?

    5 A. As I said, I was taken to the basement of the cultural

    6 centre, where I spent two days and two nights. There

    7 were 80 to 100 men there already when I arrived, and the

    8 number kept increasing. The area was too small for so

    9 many people. It was adequate for maybe 40 to 50

    10 people. Anything over 50 made it cramped, so that in

    11 agreement with the people who were watching over us

    12 there, who made sure that we would not leave the

    13 building, we were moved to the cinema hall and the

    14 offices upstairs, so that according to my estimate, in

    15 three or four days time, the number increased to 250 to

    16 300 people in all these three areas within the cultural

    17 centre in Vitez.

    18 Q. Thank you. Was there some form of registration on your

    19 arriving there, or just were you put into the basement

    20 and left there? Were there official lists of those who

    21 were taken into the basement or in the cinema?

    22 A. All the people who were taken to the basement were first

    23 thoroughly searched to make sure that they had no

    24 firearms or any other weapons and they were all

    25 registered. Upon arrest, at least I was told to take my




  4. 1 ID card and a blanket, so all the people who came there

    2 had their ID cards and on the basis of that they were

    3 registered.

    4 Q. Were you allowed during these first days to receive

    5 visits from your relatives?

    6 A. During the first few days no, but two or three days

    7 later, these visits were half allowed, or rather from

    8 time to time a member of the family could come and visit

    9 us, our wives or relatives, to bring some food.

    10 Q. During detention, were prisoners, some of them, or

    11 groups of them, taken out of the theatre, the movie

    12 theatre, and for what purposes?

    13 A. While I was detained in the cultural centre, quite a

    14 number of people were taken to dig trenches,

    15 fortifications, dugouts and the like.

    16 Q. Were you personally taken to do such work, or what else?

    17 A. I personally did not do that work, but I did clean the

    18 building itself and in front of the building, it means

    19 that I was engaged to do some work unwillingly.

    20 Q. The people who were chosen for work, trench digging,

    21 were they chosen according to lists of their names or

    22 randomly? I make an example. Did some officer, some

    23 HVO come and ask for a certain number of persons, "we

    24 need 20 people, we need 50 people", was it like that or

    25 different?




  5. 1 A. Groups were selected by random, usually younger men who

    2 were capable of doing that kind of work. Fifteen to 20

    3 people were regularly taken and were taken for digging,

    4 for a day and a night, or two days and two nights.

    5 Unfortunately some people never returned from that

    6 digging.

    7 Q. Those who returned, in which conditions did they appear

    8 physically and psychologically?

    9 A. They were visibly tired, dirty, frightened and

    10 exhausted.

    11 Q. You said you remained in the basement for a couple of

    12 days. Then did you move to some other areas in the same

    13 building?

    14 A. Yes, I said I spent two days and two nights in the

    15 basement and then I was moved to the cinema hall. Some

    16 people remained in the basement, because I said, because

    17 it was too cramped in the basement, some were taken to

    18 the cinema hall and some to the offices. I was taken to

    19 the cinema hall.

    20 Q. During this period, were you interrogated?

    21 A. Not in this period.

    22 Q. But in this period, did you have any other meeting with

    23 Croat representatives, and if so, for what reasons, for

    24 what purpose?

    25 A. The first night after my arrest, Dr Mujezinovic came to




  6. 1 the building, Mr. Zvonimir Cilic and Boro Jozic. Jozic

    2 and Cilic and Zvono proposed a brief meeting with us who

    3 were already in detention. Dr Mujezinovic was to take a

    4 couple of people for these talks on the possibility of

    5 halting hostilities and the destruction of the town and

    6 its environs.

    7 Q. I understand Dr Mujezinovic was not at that time

    8 detained?

    9 A. No, he came from the improvised military infirmary which

    10 was under the supervision of the HVO.

    11 Q. So he was there as a physician, he was there

    12 occasionally as a physician; is that what you mean?

    13 A. Yes, he was working there occasionally as a doctor.

    14 I do not know whether it was of his own free will or

    15 under coercion.

    16 Q. During this meeting, what did they ask you to do?

    17 A. We talked for about two to three hours. We were

    18 requested to halt the offensive operations of the army,

    19 or rather to suggest to army members, members of the

    20 BiH army to surrender or something to that effect. To be

    21 quite frank, this was not stated explicitly in the way

    22 I have put it, but the meaning could be interpreted in

    23 that sense.

    24 Q. In this perspective, can you tell us and tell the court

    25 whether you were there as Muslim representatives which




  7. 1 were occasionally detained or explicitly as prisoners?

    2 Did they consider you and tell you you were prisoners

    3 which were being involved in that negotiation?

    4 A. At the time, I was a prisoner, and all the others were

    5 virtually prisoners. This was stated by the words, "you

    6 are down there, we are here, here are the telephones,

    7 call whoever you think you should call".

    8 Q. Did you pick up the telephone?

    9 A. Yes, I spoke that evening three times by phone with a

    10 member of the command of the local battalion housed in

    11 Kruscica, he has the same surname as I, his name is

    12 Sifret Sivro. I explained to him where we were and what

    13 we were doing and I asked him that no offensive

    14 operations should be launched from that side. The other

    15 conversation I had was with my brother in Zenica,

    16 I asked him to deny the report that Dr Mujezinovic had

    17 been killed, because he was alive and my brother did

    18 that through the media of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    19 My third call was to Colonel Ramiz Dugalic, who

    20 was then already working in the command of the III

    21 Corps. This was very late, after 2.00 am. This was

    22 already 20th April. We also explained to him our

    23 position and we also recommended that no further

    24 movements of the troops should be made and that attempts

    25 should be invested to calm down the situation.




  8. 1 Q. Thank you, Mr. Sivro. What happened after that? Did you

    2 receive other visits by Croat officials and military

    3 people subsequently?

    4 A. Allow me just to say what the outcome of that meeting

    5 was. About an hour or an hour and a half later, Ivica

    6 Santic and Pero Skopljak arrived and again we had the

    7 same points made and we asked that the situation in

    8 Vitez should be brought under control, and so we

    9 prepared a joint proclamation that was read out on local

    10 television. Unfortunately it bore no fruit.

    11 Q. Who did sign that statement? Did you particularly sign?

    12 A. I did not sign it, it was signed by Dr Mujezinovic and

    13 on the other side by Mr. Ivica Santic.

    14 Q. Let us go to a subsequent period of time. Did you after

    15 that receive other -- were met by Croat officials and/or

    16 military representatives, and what did they ask you, if

    17 so?

    18 A. After that, there were no official contacts. Our only

    19 communication was with the local people, that is our

    20 guards. But to answer your previous question, the

    21 situation did not calm down, nor were any of the

    22 prisoners released. Visits were not prohibited; that is

    23 our closest relatives could visit us for a brief period

    24 and bring some food. They could not stay for more than

    25 five or ten minutes.




  9. 1 Q. Did the number of prisoners in the cinema significantly

    2 increase or diminish during that period?

    3 A. During that period, that is we are talking about April

    4 20th, more prisoners were coming in and as I said, the

    5 figure increased to 250 to 300 people in the building in

    6 which I was put up.

    7 Q. How did it happen that you leave the building and in

    8 which circumstances?

    9 A. Let me just add that in the period before leaving this

    10 building, the International Red Cross registered all the

    11 prisoners and already at the end of April, a senior

    12 military delegation of the HVO and the BiH army, both

    13 chiefs of staff, Sefer Halilovic and Milivoj Petkovic,

    14 who was the commander of the HVO command, they visited

    15 us and told us orally that agreement had been reached

    16 for all of us to be released home. However, this did

    17 not happen. Some people were released, but the rest of

    18 the people stayed where they were.

    19 Q. What about you at that moment?

    20 A. On 29th April, a considerable number of the detainees

    21 were released home, and on 4th May, very early in the

    22 morning, a few from the group that were still detained

    23 in the cinema hall were transferred to a chess club in

    24 another part of the city.

    25 Q. How many of you were on that occasion?




  10. 1 A. On that occasion, there were 12 men, then another man

    2 was brought in an hour or two after us, which makes a

    3 total of 13.

    4 Q. Do you remember the name of some of your fellows?

    5 A. Yes, I can remember. For example, engineer Suad Salkic,

    6 Cazim Ahmic, engineer Alija Basic, Professor Enes

    7 Surkovic, Fuad Kaknjo, Subasic, the late Causevic Serif,

    8 Dervis Subasic, Cazim Sahman and so on.

    9 Q. Were you transferred to the chess club in secrecy? Did

    10 you get at that time the impression that they were

    11 hiding you, did you imagine that you were about to

    12 receive any particular treatment?

    13 A. Yes, that is what we believed, our transfer was carried

    14 out in strict secrecy.

    15 Q. What did the members of this group have in common? You

    16 mentioned engineers, doctors; can you explain to the

    17 court what link possibly these people -- these 12 and

    18 later on 13 people, were they all Muslims?

    19 A. All these people were Muslims, the majority were

    20 prominent figures in the economy, in business. In a

    21 word, they were prominent figures in the life of the

    22 town.

    23 Q. Were some of them members of the SDA?

    24 A. Yes, some were members of the SDA, I remember well that

    25 Mr. Kadir Didic, Fuad Kaknjo, I am not sure about the




  11. 1 others, whether they belonged to the SDA party.

    2 Q. To your knowledge, were the ICRC aware of your

    3 situation, of the place where you were being taken?

    4 A. The International Red Cross did not know that we had

    5 been transferred from the cinema to the chess club.

    6 Q. Where were you taken then from the chess club?

    7 A. We stayed in the chess club for one night and one day, a

    8 day and a half actually, and then we were summarily and

    9 very expeditiously evacuated to Kaonik, a locality close

    10 to Busovaca.

    11 Q. Had you already visited that place, that camp, or did

    12 you know it?

    13 A. I knew the locality, but it was -- as it was a military

    14 facility of the former Yugoslav People's Army, access

    15 was not allowed for civilians, but I was familiar with

    16 it, I knew where it was.

    17 Q. Where did the HVO detain you in Kaonik?

    18 A. The 13 of us were detained in a building that used to be

    19 a military warehouse which I assume was rapidly adapted

    20 into a military prison. Cells were built from building

    21 material, even concrete elements with doors being placed

    22 in front.

    23 Q. Which were the general aspect of the cell you were put

    24 into?

    25 A. The 13 of us were put up in a cell which in my estimate




  12. 1 was adequate for four people on the outside, so there

    2 were 13 of us in this same room at the same time for two

    3 or three days we stayed there.

    4 Q. How was the situation as to food and hygiene and general

    5 protection of your physical health?

    6 A. We were in the cell all the time, the hygiene was below

    7 the minimum, the food was barely adequate for survival.

    8 Let me refer to a detail; as there were many of us in

    9 this cell, of course, we were all very tense and we

    10 often needed to use the toilet. In order to go there,

    11 one had to knock on the door, the guard would open the

    12 door and let one to two of us out. As I said, this

    13 happened frequently, we needed it frequently, so we were

    14 given a metal box of five litres, so that we could use

    15 it to urinate in the cell itself.

    16 Q. On your first entering the cell, do you remember having

    17 found something unusual, some unusual object, and what

    18 did you do, if so?

    19 A. Yes, I remember. Since we were in the cell for the

    20 first time, we wanted to put it in order a little, and

    21 to clean it, if possible, to make it hygienic, so we

    22 lifted these mattresses and beneath one of them we found

    23 a big knife, and we immediately reported it to the guard

    24 who was in front of the door and told him that we had

    25 found it.




  13. 1 Q. What happened? How did the guard react?

    2 A. The guard asked us exactly where we had found it and

    3 then the commander of the guards joined him and he told

    4 us all off for how come there was a knife there. This

    5 was a brief incident and after that life continued, if

    6 one may call it, normally. This case was never referred

    7 to again.

    8 Q. Were you during your stay in Kaonik interrogated, and

    9 how many times, if so?

    10 A. Yes, I was interrogated. The first interrogation was

    11 outside of the building where I was kept prisoner. This

    12 was in the town of Busovaca on the premises of the

    13 accounting services, the SDK as it was called in those

    14 days.

    15 Q. What did they ask you about?

    16 A. I was interrogated with respect to the Vitez trade

    17 company, which at that time traded in the explosives;

    18 who was in this company, what was the goal of this

    19 company and who works for this company.

    20 Q. Were you asked to sign a statement, or to write a

    21 statement and sign it?

    22 A. As I said, the first interrogation took place in the

    23 town of Busovaca. The second interrogation consisted of

    24 writing down of a statement. I wrote it down in the

    25 hallway in the prison, in the presence of a guard, and




  14. 1 I wrote down my short curriculum vitae and my actions up

    2 until the time when I was imprisoned, the contacts that

    3 I had et cetera and I signed that statement.

    4 Q. Who actually asked you to write down your statement?

    5 A. I said that the first interrogation took place in the

    6 town of Busovaca; there were three interrogators, one of

    7 these interrogators came to the detention and asked me

    8 to write this statement and to sign it.

    9 Q. During your stay at Kaonik, were you physically

    10 mistreated during interrogation or after interrogation,

    11 and in which circumstances?

    12 A. I was not physically mistreated throughout my stay in

    13 Kaonik.

    14 Q. Were some of your fellow prisoners mistreated or

    15 beaten? Is that to your knowledge?

    16 A. Yes, they were. I think that Mr. Fuad Kaknjo was

    17 physically mistreated the most.

    18 Q. Why do you think so? Have you seen him and in which

    19 conditions?

    20 A. I personally saw him because as I said, we were all in a

    21 single cell, the 13 of us. These people who were taken

    22 out to be interrogated would not be brought back to the

    23 same cell, they would be taken to another cell, so I too

    24 was taken from cell number 6 to cell number 5, 16 to 5,

    25 and when Fuad Kaknjo came into number 5 I saw that he




  15. 1 had visible bruises and he had traces of beatings on his

    2 legs and his shoulders and cheeks.

    3 Q. During your stay in Kaonik, were you visited by ECMM or

    4 ICRC officials?

    5 A. There were two visits. The first visit was by the

    6 International Red Cross and they were checking on us,

    7 since we had already been registered in Vitez. Now they

    8 re-registered us in Kaonik. Immediately following this

    9 visit, the ECMM mission representatives also came to

    10 visit. Both visits were short ones and there were no

    11 special talks that were conducted at that time.

    12 I remember that the Red Cross brought us some cigarettes

    13 and they re-registered us. The UN monitors also talked

    14 to us briefly, they were escorted by the prison

    15 official.

    16 Q. Who did escort them on that particular occasion? You

    17 said prison officials.

    18 A. I cannot say precisely who it was, because I was in a

    19 cell, they entered the cell. It is possible that

    20 Mr. Zlatko Aleksovski was also with them, but I cannot

    21 say that.

    22 Q. Had you already seen him before, Mr. Aleksovski?

    23 A. I did not know Mr. Aleksovski before my detention, but

    24 I had an opportunity to meet him and talk to him

    25 personally in his office.




  16. 1 Q. We will go to this later on, but will you give us some

    2 more details as to the meeting with the European

    3 Community Monitoring Mission? How many of them were at

    4 that meeting? How were they dressing?

    5 A. I think that there were two monitors, they were dressed

    6 in the standard white outfits, which was the regulation

    7 outfit for the European Monitors at that time. I think

    8 it was the chief of the mission for Bosnia-Herzegovina,

    9 I do not know what his name was, but I know that he was

    10 a high ranking official among the EU monitors. He asked

    11 us the usual things, how we were, how we were treated.

    12 We could not really tell him much, so we moved on to

    13 some more serene topics, like our liberation and the

    14 circumstances under which we would be set free and that

    15 indeed happened shortly thereafter.

    16 Q. Thank you. You said, just a while ago, that you met the

    17 camp commander during your stay at Kaonik. Can you

    18 state the name of the camp commander?

    19 A. The camp commander or the camp director or warden was

    20 Mr. Zlatko Aleksovski.

    21 Q. Can you see him in this courtroom?

    22 A. Yes, I can see him to my left.

    23 Q. In which circumstances did you meet him and how many

    24 times?

    25 A. As I said, we met twice in the office. My family asked




  17. 1 about me, specifically my brother, so a member of the

    2 HVO, I think at that time he was the HVO police

    3 commander, he passed on the message and he came to see

    4 how I was and brought some cigarettes, and so this was

    5 the reason why I was in the office at the warden's.

    6 Q. Where was the office in relation to your cell? Was it

    7 in the same building?

    8 A. The office was in the same building not far from the

    9 cell in which I was detained at that time, maybe five or

    10 six metres away from my cell.

    11 Q. How was Mr. Aleksovski dressing?

    12 A. I think he had the so-called camouflage uniform, and

    13 that that is what he was wearing. They were all wearing

    14 that and in final analysis, it was the war.

    15 Q. How long did this first encounter last?

    16 A. Maybe 15 minutes.

    17 Q. Did Mr. Aleksovski tell something to you? Did you have

    18 some conversation?

    19 A. Yes, he told me that his mother-in-law and his wife were

    20 in Zenica and he was concerned about their fate. At

    21 that time, Zenica was under the control of the BiH army.

    22 Q. Could you tell the court now about the second occasion

    23 which you met Mr. Aleksovski?

    24 A. The second meeting came shortly after the first one,

    25 maybe two or three days later. Again a guard came to my




  18. 1 cell and took me to the warden's office, and again my

    2 brother had intervened through another friend, who came

    3 there and asked to see me, which the warden allowed, and

    4 then again we chatted a little bit and we talked.

    5 Q. How long did the second meeting last?

    6 A. About 15 minutes.

    7 Q. In which circumstances were you then -- could you leave

    8 Kaonik?

    9 A. I could not leave the cell, I could not even leave the

    10 cell, let alone the building where I was.

    11 Q. I was asking you when and how did it happen that you

    12 were exchanged or anyway you came back to your -- to a

    13 free state, personal state?

    14 A. I left the Kaonik prison on 14th May, the whole group

    15 with the addition of two persons who were detained in

    16 another cell in another building, we were all taken back

    17 to the cinema building in Vitez, we spent two days and

    18 two nights there and on 16th May 1993, in a regular

    19 exchange which was conducted in the presence of the EC

    20 monitors and the Red Cross and other relevant persons,

    21 I was released and (redacted)

    22 (redacted)

    23 Q. Those with whom you had been exchanged, were they

    24 military or civilians? I mean the Croats.

    25 A. Yes, I understand the question. They were dressed as




  19. 1 civilians, just as we all were civilians. Some of the

    2 Croats did not even want to leave the territory

    3 controlled by the BiH army, that is they remained in

    4 their homes, they went back there.

    5 Q. Did you ever return to your apartment, your house in

    6 Vitez, after that?

    7 A. My wife has two or three times. I had a single

    8 opportunity, just a couple of minutes, just to take a

    9 couple of personal belongings for myself and my family.

    10 That was my only stay in my apartment in Vitez.

    11 MR. MARCHESIELLO: Thank you, Mr. Sivro. I am finished.

    12 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Thank you very much, Mr. Prosecutor and

    13 Mr. Sivro. I think it is now time for a break before the

    14 Defence starts the cross-examination, so we shall resume

    15 at 11.05. Is that all right?

    16 MR. NIEMANN: Just before your Honours do that, can we seek a

    17 redaction? I will just hand this up on a note from the

    18 transcript. Perhaps it could be shown to Mr. Mikulicic

    19 first.

    20 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Mr. Mikulicic?

    21 MR. MIKULICIC: Okay.

    22 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Are you agreeable, Mr. Mikulicic? Fine,

    23 then we are going to have a break now.

    24 (10.50 am)

    25 (A short break)




  20. 1 (11.10 am)

    2 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Mr. Mikulicic, the witness is now at your

    3 disposal.

    4 Cross-examined by MR. MIKULICIC

    5 Q. Thank you, your Honours. Good morning everybody. My

    6 name is Goran Mikulicic and I represent Mr. Zlatko

    7 Aleksovski.

    8 Good morning, Mr. Sivro. I have a few questions

    9 for you, so will you please answer them to the best of

    10 your recollection.

    11 A. I shall do my best.

    12 Q. Thank you. Mr. Sivro, in your statement yesterday and

    13 today, you said that in the events that you related you

    14 had contacts with the prominent persons in the political

    15 and economic life in the community where you lived, is

    16 that correct?

    17 A. Yes.

    18 Q. Mr. Sivro, when the region became destabilised, did you

    19 continue to maintain these contacts?

    20 A. Yes.

    21 Q. You said that you took part in many meetings in which

    22 the situation was discussed and efforts were made to

    23 find a solution to the situation, and I here mean the

    24 conflict between the two communities.

    25 A. Yes.




  21. 1 Q. Mr. Sivro, in these meetings, did you ever see present

    2 the accused, Mr. Aleksovski?

    3 A. No.

    4 Q. If I remember correctly, you said that you first saw him

    5 when you came to Kaonik for the first time.

    6 A. Yes.

    7 Q. Did you hear at any time when present at the above

    8 mentioned meetings that Mr. Zlatko Aleksovski had any

    9 role that he played in it?

    10 A. No.

    11 Q. Thank you. Mr. Sivro, could you tell us in more detail

    12 something that you talked about, which was the

    13 interrogation by the persons when you were taken from

    14 the Kaonik facility to the town. Who was interrogating

    15 you?

    16 A. I was interrogated by three persons. I think one

    17 person's name was Vlado Jurisic, I knew him from before

    18 the conflict and in some way, I worked with him, because

    19 he was an inspector for anti-explosives activities. At

    20 that time, I was the director of engineering and

    21 development, so I took part in his inspections of both

    22 the facilities and technology that was present in the

    23 Vitezit company.

    24 Q. Can you tell us what was the main product of the Vitezit

    25 company?




  22. 1 A. In principle, Vitezit produced explosives for the

    2 civilian purposes, which means for mining and

    3 construction industries.

    4 Q. As you said, Mr. Vlado Jurisic was an inspector and he

    5 was in public service. What was it called?

    6 A. It was the centre of the public security and it was also

    7 centre of security services in Zenica.

    8 Q. Do you know within which ministry, in other words what

    9 ministry was in charge of this sector?

    10 A. It was the Republican Ministry of the Interior of

    11 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    12 Q. So we could say that this was a police service?

    13 A. Yes, you could say so.

    14 Q. You said, and correct me if I am wrong, that at that

    15 time, you were also interrogated with respect to the

    16 explosives and the production of the Vitezit company?

    17 A. In fact about the traffic with explosives in this

    18 company, Vitezit.

    19 Q. How did you experience this interrogation? Was this

    20 like a police interrogation?

    21 A. This could not be described as purely a police

    22 interrogation. I could not figure out during this

    23 interrogation, in fact I did not understand these

    24 questions, why I was being connected to the Vitez trade

    25 company when I was not part of that.




  23. 1 Q. However, the questions asked of you were in regard of

    2 the explosives trade.

    3 A. Yes.

    4 Q. Let us go back to your stay in Kaonik. You said that

    5 you had two visits.

    6 A. Yes.

    7 Q. Your brother came, if I remember correctly, escorted by

    8 an HVO soldier?

    9 A. That is not correct.

    10 Q. What is correct then?

    11 A. My brother -- Busovaca was already under HVO control,

    12 and my brother lived and still lives in Zenica. He

    13 talked on the phone with some friends in Busovaca,

    14 because my brother worked for 15 years or more in Vatro

    15 Stelna company in Busovaca. He also had an important

    16 position there, he was an engineer, specialising in

    17 metals, so he wanted one of our acquaintances to come

    18 and visit me and see what conditions there were there.

    19 Q. Do you know who gave your brother a permit to come and

    20 visit?

    21 A. I do not know that. I said that -- I think that Nikica

    22 Petrovic was his name. At that time he was a commander,

    23 I think, of the civilian police and then he became the

    24 commander of the military police.

    25 Q. Thank you. If I remember correctly, you said that




  24. 1 Mr. Zlatko Aleksovski whom you saw there that time in

    2 Kaonik wore camouflage uniforms?

    3 A. I think he wore a camouflage military uniform.

    4 Q. Did you notice any rank insignia?

    5 A. I did not notice it.

    6 Q. You said that on 16th May 1993, you were exchanged, is

    7 that correct?

    8 A. Yes.

    9 Q. Do you know what role in this exchange played the

    10 accused Zlatko Aleksovski?

    11 A. He had played no role in this exchange, he was not

    12 present there and it is possible that he did not know

    13 about it.

    14 MR. MIKULICIC: I thank you very much, the Defence has no

    15 further questions.

    16 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Mr. Prosecutor?

    17 MR. MARCHESIELLO: No questions.

    18 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Thank you, Mr. Sivro, for your testimony.

    19 It is finished now, we have no further questions for

    20 you.

    21 A. Thank you too, your Honours.

    22 (The witness withdrew)

    23 MR. NIEMANN: My colleague Mr. Meddegoda will take the next

    24 witness, if your Honours please.

    25 MR. MEDDEGODA: Your Honours, the Prosecution intends to call




  25. 1 Hamdo Dautovic as its next witness.

    2 HAMDO DAUTOVIC (sworn)

    3 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Good morning, Mr. Dautovic.

    4 A. Good morning.

    5 JUDGE RODRIGUES: I bid you welcome.

    6 A. Thank you.

    7 MR. MEDDEGODA: May I proceed, your Honour?

    8 A. Yes.

    9 Examined by MR. MEDDEGODA

    10 Q. Could you state your full name please?

    11 A. Hamdo Dautovic.

    12 Q. And your date of birth?

    13 A. 10th June 1959.

    14 Q. Where were you born?

    15 A. In the village of Maline near Travnik.

    16 Q. What is your ethnicity, Mr. Dautovic?

    17 A. Muslim.

    18 Q. And your religion?

    19 A. Muslim, Islam.

    20 Q. Prior to April 1993, you were the owner of a restaurant?

    21 A. A coffee bar.

    22 Q. Thank you. You were owning the coffee bar even in the

    23 month of May 1993?

    24 A. Yes.

    25 Q. Do you remember 18th May 1993?




  26. 1 A. I do remember.

    2 Q. Why do you remember that date?

    3 A. 18th May 1993 I was arrested, I was detained.

    4 Q. Could you tell this court where you were arrested on

    5 18th May 1993?

    6 A. In Guca Gora near the church.

    7 Q. How far is Guca Gora from your restaurant, from your

    8 coffee bar?

    9 A. Two or three kilometres, I do not know exactly. Maybe

    10 even more, I do not know exactly.

    11 Q. Why did you go to Guca Gora?

    12 A. To buy cigarettes for the coffee bar.

    13 Q. How did you go to Guca Gora that day?

    14 A. In my private car, of Golf make.

    15 Q. Did you go alone, when you went to Guca Gora?

    16 A. Mujo Beganovic came with me.

    17 Q. Did you buy the cigarettes in Guca Gora?

    18 A. I did buy cigarettes in Guca Gora.

    19 Q. Having bought the cigarettes, what did you do?

    20 A. I put the cigarettes in the car, and me and my friend

    21 went back home.

    22 Q. When you were returning home, what happened to you?

    23 A. On the way back, Ivica Bobas stopped me, who told me --

    24 he cursed my balija mother and told me to get out of the

    25 car.




  27. 1 Q. Who was Ivica Bobas?

    2 A. Ivica Bobas was a guy who lived close to me. He often

    3 came and patronised my coffee bar.

    4 Q. On that occasion when he stopped your car, was he alone?

    5 A. He was alone.

    6 Q. Was he dressed in any particular uniform at the time?

    7 A. He had camouflage uniform on.

    8 Q. What did that uniform signify to you?

    9 A. It meant that he was an HVO soldier.

    10 Q. You said Mujo Beganovic was also with you at that time?

    11 A. Yes.

    12 Q. Was he also stopped together with you?

    13 A. Yes. We were together in the same car, I drove it.

    14 Q. What happened after you were stopped by Ivica Bobas?

    15 A. Three other soldiers came, three other men. They told

    16 Mujo that he was free to go and Ivica Bobas ordered me

    17 to pull everything out of my pockets and put it on the

    18 car.

    19 Q. What were the three other soldiers attired in?

    20 A. Camouflage uniforms, camouflage suits.

    21 Q. So in all at that time there were four including Ivica

    22 Bobas, at the time after you were stopped?

    23 A. Yes.

    24 Q. Were any of them armed at the time?

    25 A. Yes, they were.




  28. 1 Q. What did they carry with them?

    2 A. Ivica Bobas had an automatic rifle Kalasnjikov, two

    3 others had automatic rifles and the last one had a

    4 pistol.

    5 Q. You said that Mujo Beganovic was ordered to go, is that

    6 right?

    7 A. Yes, that is correct, and he left.

    8 Q. What happened to you at that point in time?

    9 A. Bad things happened with me. I was taken to the police

    10 station which used to be the old Yugoslav militia

    11 station, and I waited in front, Ivica Bobas and another

    12 soldier with the rifle kept me there, I do not know how

    13 long it took, but it seemed very long to me, maybe half

    14 an hour or an hour, I do not know how long it took. But

    15 they did not take me into the room. Then the other two

    16 came, they took me into a car, a Ritmo make, and I was

    17 in this car and I knew that vehicle.

    18 Q. How were you -- from the point you were arrested, how

    19 were you brought to the police station?

    20 A. On foot, we just crossed the soccer field from the

    21 arrest to the police station, so it was on foot, I was

    22 between them.

    23 Q. What happened to the cigarettes that you had bought in

    24 Guca Gora?

    25 A. The cigarettes that I bought in Guca Gora remained in




  29. 1 the car and the car was driven away before my very eyes.

    2 Q. You said that at the police station in Guca Gora, you

    3 were put into another car, a Fiat Ritmo car?

    4 A. Yes.

    5 Q. After being put into the police station, what happened

    6 to you?

    7 A. In front of the police station, I waited and nothing

    8 happened. Those two soldiers guarded me, Ivica Bobas

    9 and another one. The other two went into the police

    10 station, I do not know why, probably to ask some things

    11 or to tell them about me. Then they took me into the

    12 Ritmo car.

    13 Q. Sorry. After being put into the Ritmo car, what

    14 happened to you? That was my question.

    15 A. Then I was placed between the two soldiers in the back

    16 seat and they started driving towards Radojcici, towards

    17 Nova Bila, down the road. I had to bend my head so

    18 I could not see where we were going. I had to keep my

    19 head between my knees. Some of them hit me with the

    20 knife handle in the neck area and the other one with a

    21 rifle butt over my back. This was in the car.

    22 Q. You said the car was driven through Radojcici in the

    23 direction of Nova Bila?

    24 A. We passed by Radojcici, outside Radojcici, towards Nova

    25 Bila.




  30. 1 Q. Did anything happen before you came to Nova Bila?

    2 A. At a bend to the right in the road, since I already saw

    3 that there would be no life for me I tried to jump out

    4 of the car. I hit the soldier next to me, it was not

    5 Bobas Ivica, but somebody else I did not know. The door

    6 was opened, we fell out. The car swerved from the road

    7 but Ivica Bobas ran up to me, he was very close to me

    8 and he ordered me to open my mouth, he pushed the barrel

    9 into my mouth and then they beat me as much as they

    10 wanted until I lost consciousness. All the time the

    11 barrel was in my mouth.

    12 Q. Approximately for how long were you kept there?

    13 A. It seemed to me to be an eternity and I did not have a

    14 watch, but I think it was about one hour. I do not know

    15 exactly, but it seemed a very long time, because I was

    16 beaten all that time.

    17 Q. What happened thereafter?

    18 A. After that, another car, an Opel Rekord came, another

    19 vehicle and there was not enough room inside because

    20 another driver had come, so they put me in the boot of

    21 the car, in the luggage compartment.

    22 Q. Thereafter, they drove along in that car?

    23 A. I was driven in the Rekord, shut up in the trunk. There

    24 was a lot of dust. I do not know where they were taking

    25 me.




  31. 1 Q. On the way was the car stopped at any point?

    2 A. The car was stopped, in front of a building. There was

    3 light. The lights were on. I heard a voice, "here we

    4 have a balija extremist for you", somebody said and

    5 somebody else said, "he is not for us, that is Hamdo.

    6 Take him away".

    7 Q. You were in the boot of the car. How did you know that

    8 there were lights?

    9 A. I knew because they opened the boot and I saw the

    10 light. That is when I saw the light, from the boot of

    11 the car.

    12 Q. Thereafter, did the car proceed further?

    13 A. We continued the ride.

    14 Q. For about how long did the journey continue?

    15 A. I do not know, I was in the boot and I was expecting to

    16 be killed. I was trying to hear what they were talking

    17 about in the car and I heard them saying that they would

    18 open the boot as if to let me go, and that they would

    19 kill me then as if I had tried to escape, so I got even

    20 more frightened.

    21 Q. Did the car finally come to a halt?

    22 A. The car stopped somewhere in the woods. The boot was

    23 opened and I was called out by an unknown voice, there

    24 were now five of them in the car, not four, "you have a

    25 child, you are a good man, you are not a bad man. We




  32. 1 will let you go. Be careful, you must go home". I knew

    2 what was in wait for me, and I pretended to be even more

    3 badly hurt than I really was, so that I could not get

    4 up. We saw the lights of another car coming from the

    5 other direction, I do not know which make it was, and

    6 when that car reached this car that I was in, I heard a

    7 voice saying, "what is that?"; he said, "we have a

    8 balija extremist that we need to get rid of", and then

    9 I realised everything.

    10 Q. You did not leave the car when you were asked to go?

    11 A. No, I did not get out because I know what they wanted to

    12 do. I was badly beaten, but I pretended to be even

    13 worse so that I could not get out, because I knew that a

    14 bullet was waiting for me if I did get out.

    15 Q. What did your captors do to you thereafter?

    16 A. I do not know, the man who came up said, "do not kill

    17 him, you should get everything he knows out of him.

    18 There is always time to kill him". When he said that,

    19 he must have been some kind of a commander, somebody

    20 that they listened to, so the boot was shut again, and

    21 then they continued the journey. I did not know where

    22 we were going.

    23 Q. Did the car come to a halt thereafter?

    24 A. Afterwards, yes, the car stopped in front of a building

    25 which I did not know at the time. Afterwards I realised




  33. 1 where I was, it was Kaonik, in front of the prison, the

    2 camp, the hangar, whatever you like to call it.

    3 I learnt everything afterwards. At the time I did not

    4 know anything. I was dragged out of the boot of the

    5 car, all beaten up. I was dragged out and I heard this

    6 man who did not have a rifle, he only had a pistol, and

    7 he said, "we are going to prepare a farewell party for

    8 you". Again I was terrified, because I thought he meant

    9 a bullet, he wanted to kill me. Fortunately they did

    10 not kill me, they beat me. They put me in the middle

    11 among four of them, like a movie, and they beat me.

    12 I was in the centre.

    13 Q. Do you remember what time of the day it was when you

    14 came to Kaonik?

    15 A. It was night-time. I do not know, but it was dark,

    16 because when I left my home to go to Guca Gora, it was

    17 the afternoon.

    18 Q. Then at Kaonik, you were put into a cell in the Kaonik

    19 camp, was it?

    20 A. After they had beaten me up very badly, somebody helped

    21 me to get to the cell, there was a long corridor. For

    22 me it was very long because I could not walk.

    23 Q. Did you realise in which cell you had been detained?

    24 A. After a few days, I learnt that I was in cell number 3,

    25 it was cell number 3, but at first I did not know which




  34. 1 cell it was, because they did not ask me where I was

    2 going, they just shoved me in.

    3 Q. When did you find out that it was cell number 3?

    4 A. When Dragan Micic was on duty. They called him Arkan.

    5 Q. Dragan Micic was also a guard at the camp?

    6 A. Yes, I think he was one of the guards. He gave me water

    7 several times, he also gave me a couple of cigarettes,

    8 or at least I think it was him, because it was passed

    9 through the keyhole and I know that he did not beat me.

    10 Q. Could you give us a description of cell number 3 in

    11 which you were detained?

    12 A. Cell number 3 in which I was detained could be described

    13 as being 2.5 by 3 or 2.75 by 3.20, something like that,

    14 roughly that was the area of the cell.

    15 Q. Were there any windows in the cell?

    16 A. There was a window, but facing the corridor inside.

    17 There was no window facing out. It was not a window

    18 really, but it had rails on top.

    19 Q. You said there were no windows facing the outside.

    20 A. No, there were no windows.

    21 Q. This one window with bars, where was that?

    22 A. It was above the door, facing the corridor, facing the

    23 inside of the building.

    24 Q. Were there any electric lights inside the cell?

    25 A. There was no electric light in the cell, but there was




  35. 1 an electric bulb outside in the corridor, so that the

    2 light came through the bars, through the opening.

    3 Q. What were the other facilities you had inside the cell?

    4 A. I had a blanket, a small pillow. There was a wooden

    5 bench, maybe it was 80 centimetres in concrete and then

    6 on top of it there was a wooden plank. I cannot tell

    7 you exactly. It was intended for sleeping. There was a

    8 tin can which was a toilet, the toilet for me.

    9 Q. You had to use this tin can as your toilet, is that

    10 right?

    11 A. Yes, I did. I used it. Only when Dragan Micic was on

    12 duty, he would let me spill it out and fill a plastic

    13 bottle with water. He gave me this bottle so I had some

    14 water, because I did not dare have any contact with any

    15 other guards. Every time they opened the cell, they

    16 beat me, so I preferred them not to open it at all.

    17 Q. During your period of detention, were you taken out of

    18 the cell at any point in time?

    19 A. I was taken out of the cell.

    20 Q. On how many occasions were you taken out of the cell, do

    21 you recall?

    22 A. I do. I was taken out twice when Darko Kraljevic, Mirko

    23 Selak and Brane came, I think his surname is Jukic, he

    24 is now living in Travnik. On that occasion I was badly

    25 beaten up.




  36. 1 Q. Where were you beaten on that occasion?

    2 A. I was taken into a room with no chairs, no table. I do

    3 not know what it was, it was in the building.

    4 Q. How far was it from your cell?

    5 A. I could not really tell you exactly.

    6 Q. Was it in the same building as your cell?

    7 A. Yes, it was in the same building.

    8 Q. On that occasion, what happened to you?

    9 A. On that occasion, I was interrogated by Darko Kraljevic,

    10 who asked me how many Mujahedin there were, what they

    11 were supplied with, how many arms the BiH army had and

    12 all the other things they had, whether I had a rifle,

    13 how many women I had killed, how many women I had raped,

    14 how many children I had killed, how many houses I had

    15 torched. Since I was beaten badly, I would say whatever

    16 they wanted to hear, but they beat me very much. There

    17 were another six boys in uniform. I assumed that they

    18 were the bodyguards of the three, that was my conclusion

    19 anyway.

    20 Q. In what position were you when you were interrogated by

    21 these three people?

    22 A. In every possible position. I was standing for as long

    23 as I could stand while they beat me, then I sat down

    24 when they beat me. At the end, Brane sat on my back and

    25 beat me. I was lying down on my stomach. There was a




  37. 1 microphone of some sort, something like a microphone in

    2 front of my mouth, and then they went on beating me and

    3 I was told to repeat whatever they said, so that I did,

    4 I repeated what they told me. This was accompanied by

    5 blows, because he was sitting on my back.

    6 Q. You said you were interrogated on this occasion by Darko

    7 Kraljevic, Mirko Selak and Brane Jukic.

    8 A. Yes.

    9 Q. Who were they?

    10 A. I knew Mirko Selak, because he is a native of Guca Gora

    11 and that is where I completed elementary school, so that

    12 I knew him well. He did not beat me, but these other

    13 six did who were in uniform, Darko Kraljevic beat me,

    14 but Brane beat me most.

    15 Q. Did you know Darko Kraljevic from before?

    16 A. I did, I knew him, but only by sight. I was not in

    17 touch with him.

    18 Q. And Brane Jukic? Did you know him also from before?

    19 A. I did not know Brane Jukic at all, I just -- his face

    20 seemed familiar, but I did not know him, I did not know

    21 where he came from or who or what he was. But Darko

    22 Kraljevic, I saw him in my cafe bar and in others that

    23 I used to frequent, so that Darko was familiar to me by

    24 sight, but Brane was neither known or unknown. I may

    25 have seen his face a couple of times, but I did not know




  38. 1 him at all.

    2 Q. What particular dress were they attired in at the time

    3 they interrogated you?

    4 A. Darko Kraljevic, Mirko Selak and Brane were in civilian

    5 clothes. I cannot remember what exactly they were

    6 wearing, but they were not in uniform.

    7 Q. And the other six?

    8 A. The other six were in uniform.

    9 Q. What uniform was that?

    10 A. In the camouflage uniform, military uniform, the

    11 multi-coloured uniform.

    12 Q. That uniform, did it signify anything to you?

    13 A. It did indicate that they were HVO soldiers, and they

    14 could be their bodyguards, two for each one of the three

    15 of them, that was my opinion as soon as I saw them.

    16 Q. So that was one occasion on which you were taken out of

    17 the cell. What was the second occasion on which you

    18 were taken out of the cell?

    19 A. Yes, the other occasion was when I was badly beaten up.

    20 I had blood in my faeces and my urine. I was afraid

    21 I would die, I did not expect to live through it. Then

    22 I complained to Dragan Micic, whom I did not know from

    23 before, but he proved to be a kind man in that camp, and

    24 then he told me that I should address myself to the

    25 warden and ask him to see a doctor, and in two days




  39. 1 time, that happened. The warden, the director, took me

    2 to the doctor.

    3 Q. Who was the warden of the camp who took you to the

    4 doctor?

    5 A. Zlatko.

    6 Q. Could you give a description of the physical appearance of

    7 Zlatko Aleksovski?

    8 A. He was bald with a round face, between 35 and 40, 45

    9 years of age, not more than that, somewhere in that

    10 range, medium height.

    11 Q. Could you recognise him if you see him again?

    12 A. I could.

    13 Q. Could you say to this court whether he is present here

    14 today?

    15 A. He is.

    16 Q. Where is he?

    17 A. I think he is over there, up there.

    18 Q. Thank you. You said the accused took you to the doctor?

    19 A. He drove me to the doctor in his own car, but without

    20 the lights on. I sat in the back. He was alone in the

    21 car with me.

    22 Q. What time of the day was it when he drove you to the

    23 doctor?

    24 A. It was night-time or evening, I do not know what time it

    25 was. I know it was dark.




  40. 1 Q. Where were you taken to?

    2 A. I was taken to Busovaca.

    3 Q. What happened when you were taken to see the doctor?

    4 A. When I got into the car and sat down, he closed the door

    5 and when he sat in the driver's seat, he said, "do not

    6 try anything because you will not succeed", and I was

    7 beaten up and incapacitated, so I did not even have any

    8 intention to try anything. I needed a doctor because

    9 I thought I would not pull out. He drove the car,

    10 I tried to ask something, but I did not get any answers,

    11 until we reached the hospital, or rather the health

    12 centre. The car stopped in front of the health centre,

    13 he told me to get out.

    14 Q. Did you get out of the car?

    15 A. As I came out of the car, I felt very weak, because

    16 I was so badly beaten, much more than is normal, and

    17 I crawled on all fours, I saw two nurses who wanted to

    18 help me, but he did not let them. The director said,

    19 "he is strong, he is able-bodied, he can walk alone",

    20 so I entered the corridor and I sat on a wooden bench in

    21 the waiting room.

    22 Q. What did the accused do at this stage?

    23 A. He entered the doctor's office, it was a lady doctor

    24 that time. I do not know what he did over there.

    25 Q. For how long was he inside the doctor's office?




  41. 1 A. Ten or fifteen minutes, not long. I was outside in the

    2 corridor.

    3 Q. Did the accused come out of the doctor's office?

    4 A. They called me in, inside the office. Together with the

    5 lady doctor was the director in the doctor's surgery.

    6 She asked me what was wrong with me, I said I was very

    7 sick, because I knew I did not dare tell her I had been

    8 beaten.

    9 Q. You said together with the lady doctor there was the

    10 director; who was this director you are referring to?

    11 A. Zlatko, the prison warden, the one who brought me there.

    12 Q. You are referring to the accused in this case?

    13 A. To Aleksovski.

    14 Q. When you went into the doctor's office, what happened

    15 then?

    16 A. In the examination room, the lady doctor asked me what

    17 was wrong with me, and I sort of tried to find the

    18 warden's eyes to see what I should say and he said that

    19 I had a cold, that I needed an injection, nothing else

    20 was wrong with me. I said to the doctor that I had

    21 blood in my stool and my urine. She told me to strip to

    22 the waist, and I did and I was completely black and

    23 blue. The doctor then told the warden, "this is animal

    24 behaviour". She took the stethoscope and she checked me

    25 out. She said, "you need treatment, treatment is needed




  42. 1 for the patient, for Dautovic", that was me. Zlatko

    2 responded, "we have" --

    3 Q. What was Zlatko's response?

    4 A. Zlatko's response was that I could not stay in the

    5 hospital, that they had a separate room in the prison

    6 for medical -- I do not know how he called it, how he

    7 called that room where they kept the sick, I do not know

    8 if he called it the infirmary or what, but he said he

    9 had a room where the sick were being treated in the

    10 prison.

    11 Q. Were you treated at the health centre by the doctor?

    12 A. I received an injection, I do not know what it was, that

    13 is all I received.

    14 Q. Then what happened thereafter?

    15 A. After that, I again got into the warden's car, and the

    16 warden turned on the ignition and started. It was night

    17 and he went towards the camp. Then through tears

    18 I requested, "please cut down on the beating and cut

    19 down on my portions of food, because I cannot eat from

    20 all the beating", and then he said, "nobody will beat

    21 you any more". He promised me that nobody would beat me

    22 again.

    23 Q. When you came back to the camp, were you treated at the

    24 medical facility in the camp as promised by the accused?

    25 A. I was returned to the same cell, same place.




  43. 1 Q. Did the beatings stop in accordance with your pleadings

    2 to the accused?

    3 A. From then on, I was beaten more. I received more

    4 beatings, because the cell was open and the three came

    5 in and beat me, they said, "he is the one who complained

    6 about the beating". Then I regretted for having

    7 complained to the warden, because I was receiving more

    8 beatings.

    9 Q. I go back to my earlier question. When you came back to

    10 the camp, were you treated at the medical facility as

    11 promised by the accused. Did you receive any medication

    12 at all in the camp?

    13 A. I received an injection in the infirmary, but this was

    14 where I was examined by the doctor, and for me, that

    15 infirmary in the prison was really the cell where I was

    16 returned.

    17 Q. What were the other occasions on which you were taken

    18 out of the cell during the period of your detention?

    19 A. There was an occasion when four of us were brought out

    20 of the cell, when Zlatko and a group of his guards, his

    21 soldiers, I do not know who they were, they created a

    22 sort of little play with us. It was me, Muhamed from

    23 Syria, Ivica Marus from the Dorci area and some Zlajo,

    24 I do not know him.

    25 Q. Could you tell this Trial Chamber what this play was all




  44. 1 about?

    2 A. They called it a monodrama, a play. We had to lie down

    3 on our backs and create a cross. I will describe it,

    4 also I will try to show it. My legs were here and my

    5 head was there and then Kun's legs were next to mine,

    6 Ivica's legs were here and head there and Zlajo's head

    7 was here and legs here (indicates). Then we were told

    8 to sing and to sing it very loud so it could be heard

    9 well. I was ordered to say, "for King and country".

    10 Muhamed Kun was to say, "Comrade Tito, we give you an

    11 oath". For Ivica it was to be "Allah Akbah". It was

    12 all to be said in unison. Since I was beaten up badly

    13 and did not have any voice left, I was beaten a lot

    14 because I was not able to say, "for King and country".

    15 They thought that I would not say these things. I was

    16 going to say anything just not to be beaten, but I could

    17 not, so I was beaten a lot. There was a lot of laughter

    18 on that occasion and Zlatko was among them. They

    19 talked, they chatted, they beat us, we were there at

    20 their mercy lying down and this went on.

    21 Q. Mr. Dautovic, I would want you to go back to this

    22 incident. I know the pain of mind and the pain of body

    23 that was inflicted on you, but I want to take you back

    24 to this particular incident. You said you were asked to

    25 lie down with three others on the floor, is that it?




  45. 1 A. Yes, on our backs and the head pointing up.

    2 Q. Then you described how your feet were touching each

    3 other together, is it?

    4 A. Yes, that is correct, our feet touched.

    5 Q. You were lying in the form of a cross?

    6 A. Yes.

    7 Q. So when you were lying in this position, it is when you

    8 were lying in this position you had to say the words

    9 that you were ordered to?

    10 A. Yes, but very loud, altogether in unison. Not

    11 individually, but altogether.

    12 Q. What happened if you did not say it loud?

    13 A. Beatings, blows. I received the most beating at that

    14 time.

    15 Q. Who beat you on that occasion?

    16 A. Unknown persons, persons who were there unknown to me.

    17 Zlatko did not beat me but he watched, he was present

    18 there.

    19 Q. The accused was also present on this occasion?

    20 A. He was present to this monodrama or play.

    21 Q. These persons who beat you on this occasion, were they

    22 officials of the prison?

    23 A. I do not know. There were two or three in jeans and the

    24 rest of them were in camouflage uniform.

    25 Q. Obviously that uniform signified the HVO to you?




  46. 1 A. I could not ascribe it any other meaning but that they

    2 were the HVO, because they could not have been anything

    3 else.

    4 Q. Were there other occasions on which you were taken out

    5 of the cell?

    6 A. Yes.

    7 Q. What was that occasion?

    8 A. I was brought out when the International Red Cross came

    9 to take down our information, that was brief.

    10 Q. About how long after you were taken into detention did

    11 the International Red Cross come over to the camp?

    12 A. I did not count the days very much, I was always beaten

    13 up and sick, so I could barely say when it was day and

    14 when it was night. I only knew that it was night

    15 because I was beaten less at night. I guess they were

    16 sleeping. When they would beat me -- when they would

    17 cease to beat me, I would assume it was night. So I do

    18 not know, about 18 to 20 days may have passed from the

    19 time I was detained until the Red Cross arrived, but

    20 I do not know exactly.

    21 Q. What did the International Red Cross do with you?

    22 A. They gave me, and I have this with me from the

    23 International Red Cross, I have an ID card with a name

    24 and last name, date of birth, residence, and that meant

    25 something to me. I was glad because Dragan Micic said,




  47. 1 "you should feel lucky the International Red Cross

    2 registered you, because then you would not be killed",

    3 so I was glad.

    4 Q. So in short you were registered by the International Red

    5 Cross?

    6 A. Yes.

    7 Q. Going back to the conditions -- Mr. Dautovic, if I can

    8 take you back to the conditions at the camp, did you

    9 have adequate drinking water in the camp?

    10 A. I had even too much drinking water. Whenever Dragan

    11 Micic was on duty, he would give me water, but I could

    12 not drink much of it, because I think I did not eat more

    13 than two or three meals throughout this period, because

    14 I was always beaten up. I always had water in this

    15 plastic bottle which contained one or two litres.

    16 I occasionally used it to take a drink of water.

    17 Q. So it was only when Dragan Micic was there that you got

    18 drinking water?

    19 A. At that time, I could empty the tin can that I used to

    20 relieve myself and to get the fresh water. I did not

    21 want contact with others, because I was beaten up

    22 constantly, there were times when I would shiver with

    23 fear when somebody would say -- ask for keys to open the

    24 door, and sometimes he said that he did not have the

    25 keys, so several times he protected me from being




  48. 1 beaten.

    2 Q. Did you have water to wash yourself during the period of

    3 your detention?

    4 A. I did not even wash my hands throughout my period of

    5 detention. I did not wash anything.

    6 Q. Did you have toilet facilities in the camp?

    7 A. I had a can. To me that was the toilet facility for me,

    8 it was this tin can.

    9 Q. As you said before, that was the can which you emptied

    10 when Dragan was on duty?

    11 A. I did not.

    12 Q. In the camp, did you have facilities for religious

    13 observances?

    14 A. Yes, in my thoughts and in my wishes, but without

    15 success. I did not even dare ask about it, I probably

    16 would have had my throat slit or something, so in my

    17 thoughts and inside, I did have that, but not outwardly,

    18 I did not dare ask for any such thing.

    19 Q. During the period of detention, were you deployed on

    20 work outside the camp?

    21 A. I did not. I wanted to go, because Dragan Micic told me

    22 that those who went out to dig dugouts and trenches,

    23 that they are not beaten, they would come back and spend

    24 the night and go out again, so I wanted to do that, but

    25 I was not in the shape to dig because I was considered a




  49. 1 balija extremist, a Mujahedin. I was called "mungus" in

    2 the camp. I even learned some songs in the camp which

    3 I had to sing.

    4 Q. What were the songs you had to sing in the camp?

    5 A. "From here to Fruska Gora, they are all Draza's guards

    6 and Nikola Pavelic's patrols." This I had to learn by

    7 heart and this happened several times a day, 50, 20, 10

    8 times, 100 times, whichever, whatever people wanted, and

    9 other people sang too. If there were two knocks it was

    10 not me, so I had to listen whether he would knock two or

    11 three times to see who was going to have to sing, and so

    12 I could not go to sleep, because if they knocked and

    13 I was asleep and did not hear the knocking then I would

    14 be beaten, so I had to be very alert to hear when they

    15 would knock. Several times when the door opened, they

    16 would say, "see how the balija sings" and they would

    17 knock three times, they would say, "Fruska Gora", and

    18 that was my song, I had to sing that. This was the

    19 house order, you had to do whatever they tell you to do

    20 and I did whatever I could. Not everything that I was

    21 ordered to do, I said and I did everything so that

    22 I would be beaten less. But I would always get beaten.

    23 However, thank to God I survived. They I think did not

    24 expect me to survive.

    25 JUDGE VOHRAH: Mr. Prosecutor, could you ask the witness what




  50. 1 he meant by the word "mungus"?

    2 MR. MEDDEGODA: Mr. Dautovic, you said you were called in the

    3 camp, you were called a balija extremist and you were

    4 also called a mungus. Could you tell this court what is

    5 meant by the term "mungus"?

    6 A. That was an abbreviation for Mujahedin, mungus. Balija

    7 extremist means Muslim extremist, which I was neither,

    8 because I too had problems with Mujahedin, because they

    9 do not drink alcohol, so I never had any contact with

    10 these people. Because of my business, I never had any

    11 dealings with them, I did not have an opportunity to

    12 communicate with them, because I was ignored by them,

    13 but for Zlatko I was a mungus.

    14 JUDGE VOHRAH: Thank you.

    15 MR. MEDDEGODA: You told this court that you had to sing upon

    16 three knocks and two knocks.

    17 A. Not twice or three times, but exactly three times. If

    18 they would knock twice and I would sing, then I would be

    19 beaten, because it was not my cue to sing. For me it

    20 was not two or three times, it was exactly three knocks

    21 for me.

    22 Q. So it would be three knocks for you to sing?

    23 A. Yes.

    24 Q. Who gave you such instructions?

    25 A. I received these instructions when I first came to the




  51. 1 camp, I cannot remember exactly whether it was the

    2 warden or someone else, I do not know, that I do not

    3 know who gave them, because at that time, I was scared

    4 and I was not sure whether I would be alive or I would

    5 die, so I do not know who gave them to me, but I knew

    6 that I had to stick to them, because on several

    7 occasions, I was beaten because of the singing. They

    8 had a knife in their hand and they said, "balija, listen

    9 good to this song. If you memorise it, you will be

    10 fine; if not, you will have your throat slit". So I had

    11 to remember it, I had to memorise it, and I do not think

    12 I will ever forget it.

    13 Q. Apart from Dragan Micic, do you remember any other

    14 guards who were in the camp?

    15 A. I remember well.

    16 Q. Do you remember anybody by name?

    17 A. I do remember.

    18 Q. Who would that be?

    19 A. Goran Medugorac, who beat me the most and who told me

    20 that I would not come out alive from them. He beat me

    21 the most and for me it was like a death sentence when he

    22 would be there, because there would always be beatings

    23 there, and if anybody wanted to beat any of the balijas,

    24 I was the one. They would say, "we had some drinks but

    25 we did not have any snacks, so we need some snacks, what




  52. 1 do we do?". Then I would be beaten, that would be the

    2 snacks. The worst moments would be as the cell was

    3 being unlocked and the expectation to be beaten, then it

    4 was the beatings themselves, 10, 20 blows, kicks.

    5 I became immune to the beatings in the end.

    6 Q. These guards who beat you, were they at any point in

    7 time punished by the camp commander?

    8 A. I think they were rewarded by the warden, because when

    9 the warden told me that nobody would beat me again,

    10 I really made a big mistake for having complained,

    11 because immediately I was beaten by three men with the

    12 comment, "so you are the one who complained about being

    13 beaten", so that I believed that the warden actually

    14 rewarded the ones who beat, because had they been

    15 punished, they would not have beaten people. In my

    16 view, the warden could not give the keys to those who

    17 came to beat balijas, the cells need not have been

    18 opened, but it was -- anybody could beat me, except when

    19 Dragan Micic was on duty. On several occasions he saved

    20 me from being beaten.

    21 Q. You were detained -- until when were you detained in

    22 Kaonik, Mr. Dautovic?

    23 A. Until 19th June when I left.

    24 Q. That was the year 1993?

    25 A. 1993, yes. I learned that in Zenica in the hospital, it




  53. 1 was there that I learned the date. I do not know what

    2 day it was to this day. I know the date, because I did

    3 not go home, I went to the hospital.

    4 Q. Before you went to the hospital -- how did the release

    5 from the camp take place?

    6 A. The release took place one morning, they said there

    7 would be an exchange today.

    8 Q. Who said that to you?

    9 A. Someone, one of the guards said that there would be an

    10 exchange. I do not know who it was.

    11 Q. Then what happened thereafter?

    12 A. I was told, "but don't you expect to get out alive",

    13 this was through the keyhole, so I did not expect at all

    14 to get out of the camp. When they started reading out

    15 the names and I saw my wife, my child, my house, my

    16 family in my imagination, I thought what they looked

    17 like, because I considered myself dead. I was very

    18 envious of the people who were leaving, I thought they

    19 were the happiest people on earth. They read out those

    20 names and I heard my name and I banged on the door,

    21 I said, "I am Hamdo Dautovic, it is me, I am Dautovic",

    22 and then the cell was opened and the first thing that

    23 happened was a blow, "what are you shouting for?". Then

    24 I was taken in front of this woman from the

    25 International Red Cross, I said, "I am Dautovic Hamdo",




  54. 1 so I stayed there in the corridor, among these people

    2 who were being released. I did not dare say hello to

    3 any one of them, because I did not believe it was

    4 possible that I would leave the place alive.

    5 Q. You said you were brought to the lady who was -- a lady

    6 from the International Red Cross?

    7 A. I was not brought to her, I went there alone. From the

    8 cell to where she was, it was maybe five, six metres,

    9 I do not know exactly. It was in the corridor.

    10 Q. Were there others present with the lady on this

    11 occasion?

    12 A. There were others, yes. I was the last.

    13 Q. How many -- when I meant others, were there other

    14 officials of the camp who were present on this occasion?

    15 A. Yes, they were.

    16 Q. Do you recall who they were?

    17 A. I recall seeing the warden and a couple of others, but

    18 I do not know their names, because for me, whoever was

    19 in uniform and who was there was a camp official, or

    20 whether they came to visit or on purpose to beat

    21 balijas, because everyone had the right to do that, so

    22 they were all the same to me, because I was the one who

    23 suffered their blows.

    24 Q. By warden you mean Zlatko Aleksovski the accused?

    25 A. I mean Zlatko, yes, because there was no other warden.




  55. 1 I knew of no other guard except Zlatko while I was

    2 there, because I could not kiss his feet and if that

    3 would have helped, I would have done that, but

    4 I probably would have been kicked.

    5 Q. Together with you, how many others were released on that

    6 day?

    7 A. I think that I was the 39th, because when I was getting

    8 into the bus, I looked at a woman who was reading out

    9 the name and my name was written differently from the

    10 others. The other names were typed by typewriter, my

    11 name was written by hand.

    12 Q. Were you able to observe the reaction of the guards when

    13 you were released?

    14 A. Terrible, terrible. Goran Medugorac was coming in from

    15 some place, he was carrying some bags and when I saw him

    16 and when he saw me, I thought he would kill me, because

    17 he was the one who said I would not leave alive. The

    18 window was open, and I heard him enter the warden's

    19 office and say to him, "did you not promise me that

    20 Dautovic would not leave alive?". I then acted being

    21 even more sick than I was, but I heard Zlatko say to

    22 him, "you see he is going to die anyway, so it is better

    23 that he die in their custody than in ours".

    24 Q. Then you said together with the other 38 you got into a

    25 van?




  56. 1 A. No, we did not.

    2 Q. You said you got into -- you were released from custody,

    3 your name was the 39th on the list?

    4 A. Yes.

    5 Q. You overheard this conversation between the guard

    6 Medugorac and Zlatko the accused?

    7 A. Yes.

    8 Q. Where were you when you heard this conversation?

    9 A. I was close by, the window was open, I was right in

    10 front, because there is a narrow path in front of the

    11 entrance and the office was left of the entrance, it was

    12 the first office to the left, that was the office of the

    13 warden. Because that was when I was so frightened,

    14 because I had some hopes of surviving and then I saw

    15 Goran Medugorac.

    16 Q. So despite the conversation, you were released from

    17 custody?

    18 A. I was already outside among the others, among the other

    19 38 who were released.

    20 Q. Where were you taken to from there?

    21 A. We were told that we should go to the gate, to the bus.

    22 I gained some strength, but as I tried to walk, I fell.

    23 Then two men who had also been released from the prison

    24 almost carried me to the bus between them.

    25 Q. So in the bus, where were you transported to?




  57. 1 A. To Zenica.

    2 Q. Then you spent a day in the Zenica hospital?

    3 A. Yes.

    4 Q. Were you treated at the Zenica hospital?

    5 A. I spent the night there, I was examined by a doctor, she

    6 said that I had been beaten badly, "your kidneys are

    7 probably badly damaged". The neuropsychiatrist also

    8 examined me and I had to see the neuropsychiatrist for

    9 two years and she helped me a lot, she gave me a lot of

    10 advice, telling me how to behave, to walk along the

    11 river, how to regain some sort of normality, so that

    12 I went to see a neuropsychiatrist for two years. Then

    13 I had an ultrasound examination of all my internal

    14 organs and I have the findings on me, they said that the

    15 kidneys were damaged, but not my other internal organs

    16 so much.

    17 Q. Do you still suffer as a result of the consequences of

    18 your stay in the camp?

    19 A. Yes, I have bad consequences. I feel very tired, and

    20 I feel sleepy, but I cannot fall asleep. Then I cannot

    21 memorise things, sometimes I talk to myself, I feel I am

    22 forgetful, because I remember well what happened to me

    23 ten years ago, but what happened to me now, a couple of

    24 days back, I cannot remember. A face of a person I met

    25 before the war I still remember that person, if I meet




  58. 1 him, but I am somehow ashamed, I sometimes am introduced

    2 to the same persons in five days twice. I feel a

    3 certain amount of mental disorder. I am not an idiot,

    4 far from that.

    5 If I have a small glass of alcohol, every two

    6 minutes I have to go to the toilet, so I avoid alcohol

    7 for that reason, mostly, not that I would not like a

    8 drink, but that is the consequence that I have. Then

    9 I get angry all of a sudden, I have become terribly

    10 tense so that I can explode briefly, but there is no

    11 cure for that, so I am trying to be alone and trying to

    12 be patient about it, but it is very difficult. A couple

    13 of times I went by car to Zenica, I left the car, went

    14 to a cafe bar, had a drink, found some friends, talked

    15 to them for a while; after that I do not know where

    16 I left the car, and I did not know what to do. If

    17 I went to the police and told them that they had stolen

    18 my car, I knew it was not true and I was ashamed to tell

    19 my friends of the same thing and then after about an

    20 hour and a half I found my car.

    21 Q. Do you still take medication for your illnesses?

    22 A. I do. It is a sad thing to say, but I go to the doctors

    23 often. A change of weather and I fall sick, a bit of

    24 strain or something unpleasant happens to me, I get

    25 insomnia and very dark thoughts, so I find it difficult




  59. 1 to orientate myself.

    2 Q. Before going into detention, before you were arrested

    3 and detained in the camp, what was your physical

    4 condition?

    5 A. I was not as heavy as I am now, I was more of a sporty

    6 type, I was very healthy, very fit, very, very fit, so

    7 I thought nobody could do anything to me, that I could

    8 never fall ill.

    9 Q. Did you suffer from insomnia before being detained?

    10 A. No, never.

    11 Q. As far as you know, did you have any bad or damaged

    12 kidneys before you were detained?

    13 A. Before my detention, I was never ill, I worked in a mine

    14 for eight years. I was working in the pit and I never

    15 went to see a doctor. Then for several years I was a

    16 caterer and again I never went to see a doctor. In fact

    17 I found it strange when somebody asked me about doctors,

    18 because I did not know any doctors. It was only my late

    19 mother that would go to see a doctor and that is how

    20 I came to know of some doctors, through her, but

    21 otherwise I never went.

    22 MR. MEDDEGODA: That is all, your Honours.

    23 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Thank you very much. Mr. Mikulicic, can we

    24 start with a cross-examination before lunch or not?

    25 MR. MIKULICIC: In view of the time, the Defence would




  60. 1 suggest that we have a lunch break and then that we have

    2 the cross-examination without interruption after the

    3 lunch break.

    4 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Very well. Are you agreeable?

    5 MR. MEDDEGODA: Very well.

    6 JUDGE RODRIGUES: In that case, we are going to have a lunch

    7 break and we will resume work at 2.30.

    8 (12.45 pm)

    9 (Adjourned until 2.30 pm)

    10

    11

    12

    13

    14

    15

    16

    17

    18

    19

    20

    21

    22

    23

    24

    25




  61. 1 (2.30 pm)

    2 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We

    3 are going to resume the hearing by giving the floor to

    4 Mr. Mikulicic for the cross-examination.

    5 Cross-examined by MR. MIKULICIC

    6 Q. Thank you, your Honours. Good afternoon, Mr. Dautovic,

    7 I am attorney Mr. Goran Mikulicic, Defence counsel for

    8 Mr. Zlatko Aleksovski in this Trial Chamber. I have a

    9 few questions for you and will you please answer them to

    10 the best of your recollection, so that we may establish

    11 the factual truth.

    12 Mr. Dautovic, you said you were born in Han Bila,

    13 or rather that you lived in Han Bila?

    14 A. I was born in Maline, but I am living close to Han

    15 Bila. These are all villages close to one another.

    16 Q. Where did you go to elementary school?

    17 A. Guca Gora.

    18 Q. You completed eight years of elementary school?

    19 A. Six years.

    20 Q. Did you have any further education, will you tell us

    21 what school you attended?

    22 A. I passed my seventh and eighth grade through evening

    23 classes, I passed an examination for a qualified driver,

    24 and then through evening classes, I went through

    25 commercial school and mining school, so that I am a




  62. 1 skilled miner as well.

    2 Q. These commercial and mining schools, how long did they

    3 last?

    4 A. I attended those schools part-time.

    5 Q. Could you explain that? Is it a kind of course or

    6 regular education, or does it involve just passing

    7 examinations?

    8 A. Just examinations.

    9 Q. And what qualifications did you acquire after completing

    10 those schools?

    11 A. In the area of commerce I became a qualified trader, and

    12 as a miner, I was employed in a mine and for a driver,

    13 I passed that test in Dito Verbas.

    14 Q. What were the jobs that you held after your education?

    15 A. I worked as a miner, I worked near Kruscica as a

    16 salesman, I never worked as a driver, though I do have a

    17 licence, and now I have a private cafe.

    18 Q. You told us that you had a cafe bar.

    19 A. I still do.

    20 Q. For how long have you had that coffee bar?

    21 A. Since 1991.

    22 Q. Will you tell me, does it have a name, this coffee bar?

    23 A. It does, it is called "Sreca", or "Luck".

    24 Q. And this coffee bar is in Han Bila?

    25 A. Nearby.




  63. 1 Q. Tell us, Mr. Dautovic, working in catering, did you have

    2 any unpleasantness, any disorders in your coffee bar?

    3 A. That happens in any catering institutions.

    4 Q. Did you have any dealings with the local police in that

    5 connection?

    6 A. Any caterer, if there is any disturbance, is obliged to

    7 report it to the police.

    8 Q. Will you tell us, Mr. Dautovic, who were the people who

    9 frequented your bar?

    10 A. That is a difficult question.

    11 Q. I did not mean you to name them. If you could just

    12 describe them as to where they came from.

    13 A. Yes, I understand what you are asking. All kinds of

    14 people came to my coffee bar, not just people of one

    15 particular circle, with various educations, of all

    16 ethnic backgrounds, Serbs, Croats, Muslims, so there

    17 was -- I am a hospitable person and everyone is welcome

    18 who is a good guest.

    19 Q. Mr. Dautovic, were you prominent in any political

    20 activities in your environment?

    21 A. No.

    22 Q. Are you a member of the SDA party?

    23 A. I am.

    24 Q. Since when?

    25 A. There were three parties, who else would I be for?




  64. 1 Q. I am not asking you why, I am asking you from when.

    2 A. From when it was formed.

    3 Q. Did you have any position in the party, or were you just

    4 a member?

    5 A. I had no function.

    6 Q. Tell me, Mr. Dautovic, did you personally have any

    7 conflicts with the law? Were you ever charged or

    8 punished?

    9 A. I personally was punished.

    10 Q. Can you tell us why?

    11 A. Because of fights, disturbance of the public law and

    12 order.

    13 Q. How many times?

    14 A. I do not know, a couple of times.

    15 Q. Could you tell us when that happened?

    16 A. That was before the war.

    17 Q. Can you tell us who were the people you had any

    18 conflicts with?

    19 A. It was usually under the influence of alcohol with my

    20 neighbours.

    21 Q. We will go back to 18th May 1993, the date you said you

    22 remembered well.

    23 A. Yes.

    24 Q. You have told us in outline what happened on that day.

    25 What we are interested in, in addition to what you have




  65. 1 said, is what was the reason for your journey that day?

    2 A. To buy cigarettes in Guca Gora.

    3 Q. Did you buy the cigarettes?

    4 A. I did.

    5 Q. How many?

    6 A. Two and a half boxes, that is 100 and something boxes.

    7 Q. How many boxes are there in one carton?

    8 A. 50.

    9 Q. And how many packs in one box?

    10 A. 10.

    11 Q. Where, in what shop did you buy those cigarettes?

    12 A. I did not buy them in a shop.

    13 Q. Who did you buy the cigarettes from if you did not buy

    14 them in a shop?

    15 A. I bought them from a guy in Guca Gora, I do not know his

    16 name. I know him well, we went to school together, but

    17 he is much younger than me. It is in the direction of

    18 the school, from the church, a house south of the road.

    19 Q. How come that man had cigarettes when he did not have a

    20 shop?

    21 A. At the time the difference in prices was considerable.

    22 Q. That is not clear to me.

    23 A. I do not know, he did not tell me how he got the

    24 cigarettes.

    25 Q. I am asking you for the differences in prices.




  66. 1 A. The profits were considerable and I wanted to make a

    2 profit so I wanted to get them as cheaply as possible.

    3 Q. Will you please correct me if I am wrong: can it be said

    4 that the cigarettes that you bought were not bought

    5 legally?

    6 A. Yes, I bought them illegally. I did not buy them

    7 legally.

    8 Q. You said that you were in a car with Mr. Mujo Beganovic?

    9 A. Yes, with Mujo Beganovic.

    10 Q. You said that you were stopped by Ivica Bobas.

    11 A. Yes.

    12 Q. What uniform did he have on that occasion? You said he

    13 was in an uniform.

    14 A. Camouflage uniform.

    15 Q. Did you perhaps notice the colour of his belt?

    16 A. White belt.

    17 Q. What did that mean, if somebody was wearing a uniform

    18 with a white belt?

    19 A. That he was a military policeman.

    20 Q. Mr. Dautovic, when you said that you were stopped by

    21 Ivica Bobas, is it correct for me to assume that you

    22 knew him well from before?

    23 A. I knew him very well.

    24 Q. Was he a person who came to your coffee bar as a

    25 neighbour?




  67. 1 A. On many occasions.

    2 Q. Do you know that Ivica Bobas has a brother?

    3 A. I do.

    4 Q. What is his name?

    5 A. His name -- one brother's name was Kazimir, who worked

    6 with me in the mine. I think the oldest one is called

    7 Pero, because he is ill, and then he has another

    8 brother, and I do not know all their names.

    9 Q. Of course it is only normal that you cannot remember

    10 them all.

    11 Mr. Dautovic, did you ever have any conflicts with

    12 the brother of Ivica Bobas, Pero Bobas?

    13 A. No, I did not.

    14 Q. Mr. Dautovic, do you know somebody called Kasimovic,

    15 known as Koro?

    16 A. I do, he was my neighbour -- he is now my neighbour. He

    17 was not before.

    18 Q. If I remember well, you said that Ivica Bobas, on that

    19 occasion, was soon joined by three other persons in

    20 uniform.

    21 A. Yes.

    22 Q. Did they have white belts as well?

    23 A. Two of them did, but the one who had a pistol -- two of

    24 them had rifles, but as for the one who had a pistol,

    25 I do not remember whether he had a white belt or not.




  68. 1 Q. Who ordered you to get out of the car?

    2 A. Ivica Bobas.

    3 Q. You said regarding Mujo, Mujo Beganovic who was with

    4 you, that he was allowed to go home.

    5 A. He did, he went home straight away.

    6 Q. Was he explicitly told that he could go?

    7 A. Yes, he was clearly told, "you are free and you may go",

    8 and he went.

    9 Q. Mr. Dautovic, how did you interpret this behaviour? They

    10 stopped you, however they let the person who was with

    11 you in the car go?

    12 A. I never managed to find any explanation for that. I do

    13 not know why.

    14 Q. Did these military police men ask you who owned the car?

    15 A. They did.

    16 Q. What did you answer?

    17 A. I told them it was mine.

    18 Q. Did they search your car on that occasion?

    19 A. No, they did not, but Ivica Bobas ordered me to empty my

    20 pockets and put what I had on the car. I had another

    21 17,000 German marks and some change, I do not remember

    22 how much, and I had the keys of the car. I put all that

    23 on the hood. My car was turned on and driven away.

    24 I never saw it again.

    25 Q. Mr. Dautovic, how much did you pay for those two and




  69. 1 a half cartons of cigarettes?

    2 A. I do not remember, they were expensive.

    3 Q. Not even roughly?

    4 A. Possibly about 2,000 or 2,500, but I do not know

    5 exactly.

    6 Q. You are talking about German marks?

    7 A. Yes, everything was in German marks.

    8 Q. Mr. Dautovic, can you remember in those days, that is in

    9 May 1993, what was roughly the average salary in

    10 Travnik, Han Bila and Central Bosnia in those days?

    11 A. I do not know.

    12 Q. Could you tell us roughly at all?

    13 A. I was not employed, so I do not know.

    14 Q. What were your daily or monthly earnings in your coffee

    15 bar?

    16 A. That depended.

    17 Q. Can you tell us with some more precision?

    18 THE INTERPRETER: I am sorry, we did not hear the witness.

    19 Could the witness repeat the answer, please?

    20 Q. (Not interpreted).

    21 A. One needed to have 400 to 500 Deutschmarks. If I had

    22 found enough cigarettes, I would have spent all my money

    23 on cigarettes and that is why I took everything with me

    24 that I have.

    25 MR. MEDDEGODA: Your Honour, if I may interrupt, I think some




  70. 1 questions and answers did not go down on the record.

    2 JUDGE RODRIGUES: There was an answer that was not

    3 translated. Could you please repeat the question,

    4 Mr. Mikulicic, and the witness's answer, please.

    5 MR. MIKULICIC: The question addressed to Mr. Dautovic was

    6 whether he could tell us with greater precision how much

    7 he paid for the cigarettes, or how much roughly was the

    8 monthly earnings of his coffee bar. That was the

    9 question.

    10 MR. MEDDEGODA: I think that was the question that was asked

    11 but was not translated, and then the question which

    12 followed that was also not translated.

    13 MR. MIKULICIC: I shall try in the future to slow down a

    14 little bit so as to give enough time to the

    15 interpreters.

    16 So Mr. Dautovic, because the interpreters did not

    17 manage to interpret our conversation as we are speaking

    18 in languages that are very close to one another. I am

    19 going to repeat my question.

    20 Can you specify how much your coffee bar earned in

    21 1993, in that period?

    22 A. I cannot.

    23 Q. I think that you said sometimes you covered costs and

    24 sometimes you did not.

    25 A. Yes, that is what I said.




  71. 1 Q. What were your monthly expenditures?

    2 A. I do not know.

    3 Q. Mr. Dautovic, is it not rather strange for a businessman

    4 not to know his earnings or his expenditures?

    5 A. It is.

    6 Q. Let us go back to this event, this incident. If

    7 I understood you well, you set off with about 20,000

    8 German marks. You think you will facilitate the

    9 interpreter's job? My question was, why did you take so

    10 much money with you?

    11 A. Because that was how much I had. It was a short trip,

    12 it was only a couple of kilometres that I traversed.

    13 Q. So you put your money and other personal belongings on

    14 the hood of the car?

    15 A. No, on the roof of the car, I apologise.

    16 Q. And after that the money was taken away from you?

    17 A. It was not taken away, I left it on the roof of the car.

    18 Q. What happened with that money later? Was it returned to

    19 you?

    20 A. It was divided up among the four people in my presence.

    21 I do not know whether it was shared out equally, but

    22 I know that each one of them took some money from the

    23 stack.

    24 Q. After that, you headed towards the police station in

    25 Guca Gora?




  72. 1 A. With them, because I was ordered to go.

    2 Q. After that, you boarded a car, make Fiat Ritmo.

    3 A. Yes.

    4 Q. How many doors does that car have, that model?

    5 A. I do not remember.

    6 Q. What colour was it?

    7 A. I cannot recollect.

    8 Q. Did you notice the licence plates on the car?

    9 A. I knew the car, because it belonged to Edhem Lukovic,

    10 from Han Bila, which was confiscated a couple of days

    11 before that in Guca Gora too.

    12 Q. You said, Mr. Dautovic, that you sat in the back, in the

    13 middle, between two soldiers.

    14 A. Yes, two soldiers. I was just going to correct myself

    15 and to say that the car had four doors, two in front,

    16 two in the back, and that I think it was a grey colour

    17 or something like that, but I do not really know

    18 exactly.

    19 Q. Can you recollect how much you weighed at the time?

    20 A. I do not know exactly, but over 90, between 90 and 100

    21 kilograms.

    22 Q. Along what road did you go from Guca Gora?

    23 A. Towards Radojcici.

    24 Q. At Radojcici was there a BiH army checkpoints?

    25 A. Just above Radojcici, yes.




  73. 1 Q. Was the car stopped at the checkpoint?

    2 A. No, it was not. I had to bend my head down between my

    3 knees so there were two people sitting behind, not

    4 three, because people could see me.

    5 Q. What time of day was it?

    6 A. It was dusk.

    7 Q. If I understood you well, the car passed through the

    8 BiH army checkpoint without stopping. Was that natural?

    9 A. I had the courage at the time to go to the Croatian

    10 sections, because I had nothing to fear, I had not done

    11 anything, so nobody feared the Croats if they had not

    12 done anything.

    13 Q. But that is not my question. Was it normal for cars not

    14 to be stopped at checkpoints?

    15 A. If it was not suspicious, there was no need for cars to

    16 be stopped. I crossed all the checkpoints, both

    17 Croatian and Muslim and rarely was I stopped in those

    18 days.

    19 Q. Did you not say a moment ago that the car was stolen?

    20 A. It was.

    21 Q. Does that fact not show that it was a suspicious car?

    22 A. It was not suspicious, because Edhem Lukovic was the

    23 real owner, an elderly man, he had died and they

    24 confiscated the car from him. He was a tax collector.

    25 Q. Very well. As you drove on, you said that you tried to




  74. 1 escape from the car.

    2 A. Yes.

    3 Q. You said that you pushed the person sitting on your

    4 left, so that he fell out the door, together with you,

    5 from the car. Mr. Dautovic, you are a qualified driver.

    6 Could you assess the speed at which the car was going

    7 when this happened?

    8 A. Twenty, thirty, it was very slow, because it is

    9 not -- it was not an asphalt road but a macadam road, it

    10 was going very slowly.

    11 Q. Could you explain and describe how you fell out of the

    12 car, on to what kind of ground?

    13 A. When I hit the person, the driver skidded off the road

    14 and so did the car, so it was into a meadow that we

    15 fell, because the car went right off the road then.

    16 Q. Excuse me, Mr. Dautovic, but I cannot understand that.

    17 Did the car go off the road after you fell out, or did

    18 you fall out after the car had driven off the road?

    19 A. It happened at the same time.

    20 Q. With what part of the body did you hit the ground?

    21 A. It was a field.

    22 Q. What part of the body?

    23 A. This side here (indicates).

    24 Q. Please tell us for the record.

    25 A. The left-hand side.




  75. 1 Q. Were you hurt on that occasion?

    2 A. No, I was not.

    3 Q. Mr. Dautovic, you said that at that time you wanted to

    4 grab the rifle. Of whom?

    5 A. Of the soldier who was to the left of me, that is why

    6 I tried to do it.

    7 Q. Why did you want to take the rifle?

    8 A. In order to kill them all.

    9 Q. Why would you want to kill them?

    10 A. Where were they taking me? They were taking me to kill

    11 me.

    12 Q. Did they tell you that they would kill you?

    13 A. Yes.

    14 Q. At what point?

    15 A. Several times, because several times I was hit by the

    16 knife handle in the neck area and with the rifle butt.

    17 Q. In other words during the ride?

    18 A. Yes.

    19 Q. Can you describe to us how you wanted to take the rifle

    20 away from them?

    21 A. With my hands.

    22 Q. Let us try to clarify the question. This is the

    23 situation. You are tumbling out of the car which is

    24 moving, together with another car. Three persons remain

    25 in the car which is veering off the road.




  76. 1 A. The three of them came out right away.

    2 Q. From whom are you trying to grab the rifle?

    3 A. From the man with whom I tumbled out, but I immediately

    4 got a barrel into my mouth and I surrendered.

    5 Q. Mr. Dautovic, in the events that you just described, can

    6 you specify, with respect to the point where you tumbled

    7 out of the car, where did the vehicle out of which you

    8 tumbled out stop?

    9 A. Right there, there was just a shoulder a metre away off

    10 the road and that is where it stopped.

    11 Q. After that, you said that another car arrived.

    12 A. Yes.

    13 Q. At that time, they did not put you in the vehicle but in

    14 the boot.

    15 A. Yes.

    16 Q. After that, how long did you ride in this car?

    17 A. I do not know, it was too long.

    18 Q. Then you came where?

    19 A. In front of a building where there was light, and the

    20 boot was opened and they said, "we have a balija

    21 extremist for you", and an unknown voice said, "he is

    22 not for us, it is Hamdo, take him away somewhere else".

    23 Q. After that, you arrived where?

    24 A. After that, I was driven and I heard from the boot that

    25 they were going to kill me, that they would let me go




  77. 1 and then they would kill me while trying to escape, but

    2 I did not know where. I did not know where I was.

    3 Q. When did you finally get an opportunity to get out of

    4 the vehicle? Where were you then?

    5 A. I do not know, somewhere in some woods, it was a small

    6 wood.

    7 Q. After that?

    8 A. They said, "you have a child, you are a good man", then

    9 I knew they would shoot at me when I came out, so

    10 I pretended to be even more hurt than I was so that

    11 I would not have to come out.

    12 Q. Mr. Dautovic, what I am trying to ask of you, and I do

    13 not seem to be succeeding, at least I am not succeeding

    14 in getting the answer of you, is when you ultimately --

    15 when was it that you ultimately arrived to a facility

    16 that you arrived at? Did you know what facility it was?

    17 A. No, I did not.

    18 Q. Did anybody tell you where you were?

    19 A. Yes.

    20 Q. Who?

    21 A. Micic Dragan.

    22 Q. Did you know Dragan Micic from before?

    23 A. I did not.

    24 Q. Who was Dragan Micic?

    25 A. A soldier, a guard in the prison, I do not know. I know




  78. 1 that he was there in the prison and that he did not

    2 beat.

    3 Q. How did you conclude that he was a guard?

    4 A. Because he unlocked my cell a couple of times, he gave

    5 me water a couple of times, he let me go to the bathroom

    6 a couple of times.

    7 Q. You said you were put in cell number 3, if I remember

    8 correctly?

    9 A. Yes.

    10 Q. Was anybody else in that cell with you?

    11 A. No.

    12 Q. So you were there by yourself?

    13 A. Yes.

    14 Q. Regarding the toilet, where was the cell in relation to

    15 the toilet?

    16 A. The toilet was, looking from the entrance to the left,

    17 and the cell was off to the left from there.

    18 Q. How far away from the toilet was your cell?

    19 A. I do not know, four, five, six metres, I do not know.

    20 Several metres.

    21 Q. Mr. Dautovic, according to your statement, it seems as if

    22 in this facility, you spent the time between 18th May

    23 through 19th June 1993. Was it always in the same cell?

    24 A. Yes, it was all in the same cell, with the exception of

    25 two or three days when Ivica Marus -- he was a Croat who




  79. 1 was taken prisoner as he was a member of the BiH army, so

    2 we were put together in a cell. For a short period of

    3 time there was Muhamed and there were two people from

    4 Krajina.

    5 Q. So the entire time, with the exception of those two or

    6 three days, you were alone in the cell?

    7 A. I was alone in the cell.

    8 Q. How many cells, approximately, were there in this

    9 building?

    10 A. I do not know.

    11 Q. How many prisoners, approximately?

    12 A. I do not know, I was by myself.

    13 Q. How often did you receive meals daily?

    14 A. Three times, but I did not eat them.

    15 Q. During your stay in this facility, when was the first

    16 time you saw the accused, Zlatko Aleksovski?

    17 A. When was it the first time that I saw him? When

    18 I arrived, when I came there and when I was told that

    19 the door was -- the door was open then and I was told to

    20 sing, "All the way to Fruska Gora". That is when I saw

    21 him first. I do not know if he was there with two or

    22 three other men to see me or not, but the first time

    23 officially I saw him when I asked to be taken to the

    24 doctors and when he took me there in his own car.

    25 Q. How long after you were brought there was this?




  80. 1 A. What?

    2 Q. We are talking about your being taken to the doctors.

    3 A. I do not know how many days, to me the days were very

    4 long, so to me, it seemed very long. I do not recall.

    5 Q. Can you tell at least approximately how long?

    6 A. I cannot, because I was being beaten every day, too

    7 much.

    8 Q. You said that when you first arrived you were told that

    9 you had to sing that song.

    10 A. Yes.

    11 Q. Do you know what kind of a song it is?

    12 A. Yes.

    13 Q. I am sure that the Trial Chamber does not know that, so

    14 could you please explain it to them.

    15 A. "All the way to Fruska Gora, there are Draza's guards

    16 and Pavelic's patrols." Pavelic was an Ustasha and

    17 Draza was a Chetnik, so that was the song.

    18 Q. Who sang these songs?

    19 A. I sang them.

    20 Q. But they were not composed for you?

    21 A. I do not know, I had never heard it until I got there.

    22 I had never heard it.

    23 Q. But from your schooling, you probably know who Draza

    24 Mihajlovic was?

    25 A. I know, I heard of him. He was a Chetnik, he was a




  81. 1 Chetnik leader.

    2 Q. Who was Nikola Pavelic, do you know that?

    3 A. I heard he was some kind of an Ustasha leader.

    4 Q. Do you know what were the relations between Chetniks and

    5 Ustasha?

    6 A. I do not know.

    7 Q. Were they allies?

    8 A. I do not know.

    9 Q. You did not learn about that in school?

    10 A. I did not.

    11 Q. Do you know what ethnic group the guards in the prison

    12 were of?

    13 A. To me it is a bit of a funny question.

    14 Q. The Croats would be in a Muslim prison -- it may be

    15 funny to you, but not for the Trial Chamber, they need

    16 to know?

    17 A. There were Croats, one person from Zenica, he had thrown

    18 a hand grenade among the children and had to leave

    19 Zenica. Dragan Micic told me he was a Serb and wanted

    20 to go to America, but he was captured and he was trying

    21 to be good with them so that he would be let go, and for

    22 the rest I do not know.

    23 Q. If I understood you correctly, Dragan Micic was taken

    24 prisoner?

    25 A. That is what he told me, he said, "I was captured and




  82. 1 I was in a cell for a month, I went through that

    2 myself".

    3 Q. I understand. You said that the warden Zlatko

    4 Aleksovski took you in his private car to the health

    5 centre in Busovaca to see the doctor.

    6 A. Yes.

    7 Q. You said, if I remember correctly, that you were alone,

    8 together with Aleksovski in the car, and that you sat in

    9 the back?

    10 A. Yes, and that Aleksovski told me, "do not try anything

    11 stupid, because if you try you will not succeed".

    12 Q. After that, you came to the health centre?

    13 A. Yes.

    14 Q. You entered a building?

    15 A. No, when I came out of the car, I was not able to get

    16 into the building and two nurses wanted to help me.

    17 Q. But the building did not come to you.

    18 A. But we did not go into the car.

    19 Q. Did you find yourself in the building at some point?

    20 A. I did.

    21 Q. Where did you find yourself?

    22 A. We found ourselves in front of the building.

    23 Q. Mr. Dautovic, I am going to remind you that you said that

    24 you entered the building and you sat down in the waiting

    25 room; is that correct?




  83. 1 A. It is correct that we came in front of the building,

    2 that I could not get in, I fell down, the two nurses

    3 tried to help me and the gentleman -- I am not going to

    4 call him a gentleman, Aleksovski told them that they

    5 could not help me, I crawled in on all fours and came to

    6 the bench to sit down where the patients come and sit

    7 down to see a doctor. Then Aleksovski went in. I do

    8 not know what he said to them, but then at the next

    9 moment I was called into the doctor's office.

    10 Q. You said that you were in the waiting room between ten

    11 and fifteen minutes?

    12 A. I do not know exactly, I did not have a watch. Had

    13 I had a watch, they would have taken it away from me,

    14 but I did not have a watch.

    15 Q. Did somebody guard you?

    16 A. Nobody did, I think -- it was only one car that came

    17 here, I did not see anybody else. I do not know if they

    18 thought I would try something, but I did not see anyone.

    19 Q. Mr. Dautovic, can you tell us, how come that you did not

    20 try to escape in such circumstances where nobody was

    21 watching you, and on the other hand you are jumping out

    22 of a moving car with four other persons there?

    23 A. When I tried to jump, I was fit, I was able to do that,

    24 but when Aleksovski was taking me to the doctor's,

    25 I could not even take care of myself, let alone settle




  84. 1 scores with anyone.

    2 Q. I am not talking about settling scores, I am talking

    3 about you.

    4 A. I could not, I could not move.

    5 Q. After the visit to the doctor's, when you were coming

    6 back in the car, you said that you addressed

    7 Mr. Aleksovski, asking of him to arrange so that you

    8 would not be beaten any more.

    9 A. Yes, I pleaded with him not to beat me and to even cut

    10 my meals.

    11 Q. But you did not ask what happened at the doctors?

    12 A. I thought we had settled that.

    13 Q. No, we did not.

    14 A. When the doctor asked me what was wrong with me, I said

    15 that I urinated -- that I had blood in urine and stool

    16 and Aleksovski interrupted me and said, "he only has a

    17 cold and he needs an injection". The doctor said

    18 I should strip to the waist so that she could check me

    19 and I was all black and blue and she said, "this is

    20 animal behaviour, he needs treatment". Aleksovski said,

    21 "we have it in prison, we have an infirmary, a special

    22 room for the sick". That was the same cell where I was

    23 before.

    24 Q. Mr. Dautovic, do you not remember that you said this in

    25 these same words earlier this morning.




  85. 1 A. I remember.

    2 Q. Mr. Dautovic, who is Darko Kraljevic?

    3 A. Darko Kraljevic?

    4 Q. Do you know what position he held at that time?

    5 A. I do not know at all. I knew later when I came out of

    6 the prison that he was a leader, that he had his own

    7 police force. Until then, I did not know anything.

    8 Q. You did not know him from before?

    9 A. I knew him as a guest in coffee bars, not my own but

    10 other coffee bars, so we nodded to each other, but we

    11 did not talk.

    12 Q. What experiences did you have with Darko Kraljevic?

    13 A. Terrible.

    14 Q. In what sense?

    15 A. Because when Darko Kraljevic arrived, Mirko Selak and

    16 Brane Jukic, who wanted to take a statement of me, I was

    17 very badly beaten, together with six others.

    18 Q. Do you know somebody called Goran Medugorac?

    19 A. I know him from prison.

    20 Q. What does that mean, "from prison"?

    21 A. From the camp, that is where I met him.

    22 Q. In what capacity?

    23 A. In the capacity of somebody who beat, because he beat me

    24 the worst.

    25 Q. What kind of position did he hold?




  86. 1 A. I do not know.

    2 Q. How do you know his first and last name?

    3 A. On several occasions, some people would say "Medugorac,

    4 you will kill him from beating", so several people

    5 called by that name.

    6 Q. The first name Goran, how did you know his name was

    7 Goran?

    8 A. Because that is how they called him. He even had it

    9 tattooed on his forearm.

    10 Q. Do you know that at that time there was another person

    11 by the same last name in the camp?

    12 A. No, it was not.

    13 Q. Mr. Dautovic, can you describe to us what kind of lock

    14 was on the door to your cell?

    15 A. It was on the outside and inside.

    16 Q. Was the door locked with a key?

    17 A. Yes, with a key.

    18 Q. How do you know that?

    19 A. Because they asked of Dragan Micic to give them the key

    20 and he did not give them the key, so that is how I know

    21 it was locked with a key.

    22 Q. How do you know that he did not give it to them?

    23 A. I could hear it, you could hear it through this window,

    24 the barred window that we had there, so I could hear

    25 well if somebody knocked three times, I had to sing or




  87. 1 if somebody in the corridor said, "for whom", I had to

    2 say, "for king and country".

    3 Q. Do you know whose slogan it is, "for king and country"?

    4 A. I do not.

    5 Q. Do you know who was the king in the former Yugoslavia?

    6 A. I heard from my father when I was very small there was a

    7 king, that is all I know.

    8 Q. Maybe from the school programme?

    9 A. No. Me and school, I was a poor student.

    10 Q. Could you hear when they would open the door to your

    11 cell that the door was actually unlocked?

    12 A. I did.

    13 Q. I am perfectly aware of the fact that you cannot

    14 remember all the dates, but from the moment when you

    15 were arrested, how long were you imprisoned before the

    16 Red Cross arrived, or some other official organisation

    17 of that kind?

    18 A. The International Red Cross only came once and that was

    19 18 to 20 days later. I do not know exactly.

    20 Q. Did you have an opportunity to talk alone with the

    21 Red Cross representatives?

    22 A. No, I did not.

    23 Q. Did you have an opportunity to talk to the Red Cross

    24 official at all?

    25 A. No, I did not.




  88. 1 Q. Did they identify you as a prisoner?

    2 A. I received a paper, this is what I received from them,

    3 this is what I got (indicates).

    4 Q. This is the card you got from them. What is written in

    5 it?

    6 A. My name and last name, my date of birth and residence.

    7 Q. How did they have this information if you did not tell

    8 them?

    9 A. I described that.

    10 Q. Did anyone else apart from the Red Cross representatives

    11 come to the prison?

    12 A. How do you mean?

    13 Q. I mean specifically the European Monitors.

    14 A. At that time, I was all beaten up, I could not see,

    15 I could not look around. I was not able to look at

    16 people and see who they were, what they were.

    17 Q. How many days after the Red Cross visit were you set

    18 free?

    19 A. Twelve, ten, twelve, thirteen, I do not know exactly.

    20 For me it looked like 100 years.

    21 Q. That I believe you. Mr. Dautovic, you told us this

    22 morning that when the prisoners were released, their

    23 names were read out.

    24 A. Yes.

    25 Q. At that time, you were in the cell, were you not?




  89. 1 A. Yes.

    2 Q. And you heard your name read out?

    3 A. Yes, at the end.

    4 Q. After that?

    5 A. I banged the door with my fists, I screamed out as

    6 loudly as I could.

    7 Q. And the door was opened?

    8 A. Yes, two men opened the door. One of them hit me

    9 immediately, but I had the greatest courage and strength

    10 to reach the Red Cross representative.

    11 Q. If I understood you well, you were beaten when a woman

    12 from the Red Cross was standing about five or six metres

    13 away?

    14 A. She was behind and I was in the cell. She was in the

    15 corridor and I was in the cell. The corridor is in the

    16 middle and the cells are on the left-hand side and

    17 right-hand side. I was on the left-hand side.

    18 Q. Did you complain to that woman that you were hit?

    19 A. I did not. I felt as if I had been born again, going

    20 from death to life.

    21 Q. Was anyone else present, apart from that woman from the

    22 Red Cross?

    23 A. There were others, but I did not dare look. I just

    24 looked in front of myself.

    25 Q. When were you released, that is what time of day?




  90. 1 A. I think around midday. I think it was around midday.

    2 Q. I see.

    3 A. I do not know exactly whether it was 11.00 or 12.00.

    4 Q. I think you said that you saw your name on the list

    5 written by hand, added by hand.

    6 A. Yes, that was when I was entering the bus.

    7 Q. Did you try to explain that to yourself in some way?

    8 A. No, I did not. For me, all I cared about was to get

    9 going.

    10 Q. So you got on to the bus and you were driven to Zenica?

    11 A. Yes.

    12 Q. When did you reach Zenica?

    13 A. In about an hour, I do not know exactly how long it

    14 takes for the bus to get there.

    15 Q. And what happened when you arrived in Zenica, what did

    16 you do?

    17 A. We entered a building, they interrogated us, took

    18 pictures, recorded that I was beaten up, then we left that

    19 place, some people went home, I went to the hospital,

    20 I was driven to the hospital. I do not know who by,

    21 because when I realised that I could complain, that

    22 I could say how ill I was, then I was taken and put up

    23 in the hospital for treatment. I was the only one.

    24 Q. You were the only one out of all the 38?

    25 A. Out of all the 39.




  91. 1 Q. You were the 39th?

    2 A. Yes.

    3 Q. When did you reach the hospital?

    4 A. I do not know. I was half conscious, I had kept my

    5 courage somehow up to then, but by then I had given up

    6 altogether.

    7 Q. When did you leave the hospital?

    8 A. In the morning, because the hospital was overcrowded.

    9 In the morning, I do not know whether it was 10.00 or

    10 11.00.

    11 Q. Tell us, Mr. Dautovic, were you able to walk then?

    12 A. Half able.

    13 Q. What does that mean?

    14 A. That means that I was not sure of myself, I could walk

    15 for about five metres and then I would stop.

    16 Q. What did you do after you left hospital?

    17 A. A man, a taxi driver had brought somebody to the

    18 hospital, I approached him, I introduced myself, I sat

    19 in his car and I told him immediately, "I have no money,

    20 can you take me home?". He said, "I cannot take you

    21 home because I do not have enough fuel. If you need

    22 money, here is some money, take another taxi. If you

    23 want me to take you up to some way" -- I said, "take me

    24 to the Gold restaurant in Zenica", because I was a good

    25 friend of the owner, so I went to that restaurant.




  92. 1 I was filthy with a long beard, unwashed, smelly.

    2 Everybody was shocked, they thought I had gone mad.

    3 They bought me some coffee, they asked me what had

    4 happened. When I explained everything, they found a car

    5 and they drove me home.

    6 When I got home, they slaughtered a lamb, they put

    7 poultice with fresh meat on me and this went on for

    8 about two months, I was taken to the doctors regularly.

    9 Q. What kind of treatment were you given?

    10 A. My family slaughtered a lamb and then the fresh skin of

    11 the lamb was bandaged round me to help heal the wounds.

    12 Q. If I am not mistaken, you said you ate very little in

    13 prison?

    14 A. Yes.

    15 Q. You said that when you went into prison, you were over

    16 90 kilograms in weight.

    17 A. Yes.

    18 Q. How much did you weigh when you left?

    19 A. I lost between 25 and 30 kilograms, I think, because

    20 maybe throughout that period I ate twice on the

    21 outside. I was given food but I could not eat, because

    22 I was beaten all the time.

    23 Q. Mr. Dautovic, on 18th May 1993 when you were arrested,

    24 were hostilities still going on?

    25 A. No, they had not started. A day before that, I went to




  93. 1 Novi Travnik, I had the courage to go wherever I wanted

    2 to. Before that I went to Novi Travnik, and I was

    3 captured by the HVO. They shut me up, they kept me

    4 there for three days and afterwards they let me go.

    5 When they had questioned me, when they saw that I was

    6 not in politics, they let me go and nobody touched me

    7 until Aleksovski got hold of me.

    8 Q. But it was not Aleksovski who arrested you?

    9 A. No, it was not, but I was brought to him.

    10 Q. You said this morning, Mr. Dautovic, that you still have

    11 problems as a consequence of this to this day.

    12 A. Yes, I do, considerable problems.

    13 Q. If I understood properly, these are problems mostly of a

    14 psychiatric nature.

    15 A. Yes.

    16 Q. What kind of medication are you taking? You said you

    17 were taking something, so I am asking you what?

    18 A. I am talking maurines and some other medicines. Then

    19 they give me sleeping pills because I suffer terribly

    20 from insomnia and forgetfulness also, loss of memory.

    21 Q. Mr. Dautovic, what you have described that happened to

    22 you happened more than four years ago.

    23 A. Yes.

    24 Q. During that four-year period, did you talk about what

    25 happened to you with someone?




  94. 1 A. When I started talking to some people, I did, but

    2 I avoided it, because this was very painful, so

    3 I avoided it.

    4 Q. Did you make any official statements?

    5 A. I did.

    6 Q. Will you tell us when and to whom?

    7 A. I made a statement in Zenica, in the security service

    8 centre in the district court, and last year also in the

    9 security service.

    10 Q. Will you please tell the Trial Chamber what CSB is?

    11 A. I do not know what kind of police that is.

    12 Q. But the Trial Chamber does not know what a MUP is.

    13 A. It is the police.

    14 Q. Did you ever make a statement for the radio?

    15 A. No, I did not.

    16 Q. Are you sure of that?

    17 A. I am, but only when we left they were recording. When

    18 we came out of the camp, they taped us.

    19 Q. In Zenica?

    20 A. In Zenica. I do not know where it was, but I did not

    21 specially go to make a statement.

    22 Q. So in Zenica you were recorded, when you reached Zenica?

    23 A. Yes, there was a microphone going round. I do not even

    24 know what it was about, I heard from other people that

    25 there were reports in the press of what I said, but




  95. 1 I did not see it.

    2 Q. Do you remember the statement that you made on that

    3 occasion in Zenica now?

    4 A. I do not.

    5 Q. Mr. Dautovic, you said that you have the same coffee bar

    6 today, fortunately.

    7 A. I have a coffee bar in my own house, but it is in

    8 another house, because I have two houses now.

    9 Q. How much are you making today, roughly, per month.

    10 A. I have just closed the bar.

    11 Q. How much did you make last month?

    12 A. I have not been working for some time, the whole past

    13 year maybe for two months only, because there is no

    14 business left.

    15 Q. What are you living off? Are you employed, are you

    16 working anywhere?

    17 A. No.

    18 Q. Do you have some savings?

    19 A. I had some savings and my sister's son is in Germany so

    20 he sends me some money. I have a sister in Zagreb and

    21 she sends me some money too.

    22 Q. So you are not making any money yourself?

    23 A. No.

    24 Q. Your car I think you said you never saw it again?

    25 A. That one no, but I have another one.




  96. 1 Q. Mr. Dautovic, thank you for your testimony, and I hope

    2 you will recover well.

    3 A. I can hardly expect that to happen.

    4 Q. I beg your pardon, a couple of questions more.

    5 A. No problems, as many as you like.

    6 Q. Do you know a person called Dragica Viskovic?

    7 A. I do not.

    8 Q. Do you know a person called Ante Puselj?

    9 A. Yes, I do. I know Ante Puselj.

    10 Q. Can you tell us who he is? Is he a friend of yours?

    11 A. He was my neighbour and friend and he is a dear friend

    12 of mine.

    13 Q. And a person called Ivica Marus?

    14 A. I met him in the camp, when that monodrama took place.

    15 Q. You mean what you described to us this morning?

    16 A. Yes.

    17 Q. Mr. Dautovic, my last question, I will not bother you any

    18 more. I want to show you a list, so could you please

    19 tell us whether you know some people from that list.

    20 Could the usher please show the witness a list of

    21 persons detained in Kaonik that has been admitted into

    22 evidence as Prosecution Exhibit, I think P7.

    23 A. I read rather slowly. (Pause). I cannot see anything

    24 like that. I cannot see.

    25 Q. Mr. Dautovic, will you look at the paper? It will be




  97. 1 easier for you than to read it from the screen.

    2 A. I do not know anyone.

    3 Q. You do not know a single person on this list?

    4 A. I do not know anyone.

    5 MR.. MIKULICIC: The Defence has no further questions. Thank

    6 you.

    7 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Mr. Prosecutor?

    8 Re-examined by MR.. MEDDEGODA

    9 Q. Your Honour, just two questions to clarify one matter in

    10 re-examination.

    11 Mr. Dautovic, you said to this court in

    12 cross-examination, as well as in the

    13 examination-in-chief, that you went to Guca Gora to buy

    14 cigarettes.

    15 A. I did.

    16 Q. Those cigarettes were to be sold in your restaurant in

    17 Guca Gora?

    18 A. In the restaurant or outside the restaurant.

    19 Q. You wanted to make as much profit as possible from the

    20 sale of those cigarettes?

    21 A. Yes, if I had managed to sell them, I might have gone

    22 back to Guca Gora again the next day, because he told me

    23 he would have more cigarettes the next day.

    24 MR.. MEDDEGODA: Thank you.

    25 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Mr. Dautovic, you have completed your




  98. 1 testimony. We wish to thank you for coming. Thank you

    2 very much.

    3 A. Thank you too, your Honours.

    4 (The witness withdrew)

    5 JUDGE RODRIGUES: I think you would like to take the floor,

    6 Mr. Prosecutor? I was about to suggest that we have the

    7 break before bringing in the next witness.

    8 MR.. MEDDEGODA: Very good, your Honour.

    9 JUDGE RODRIGUES: If you wish.

    10 MR.. MEDDEGODA: As it please your Honours, we will take the

    11 break at this stage and call the witness afterwards.

    12 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Very well. Then we can have a break until

    13 4.05.

    14 (3.45 pm)

    15 (A short break)

    16 (4.10 pm)

    17 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Mr. Prosecutor?

    18 MR.. MEDDEGODA: Your Honours, the Prosecution would call

    19 witness Vahid Hajdarevic.

    20 VAHID HAJDAREVIC (sworn)

    21 Examined by MR.. MEDDEGODA

    22 Q. Could you please give your full name?

    23 A. Vahid Hajdarevic.

    24 Q. And your date of birth?

    25 A. 3rd December 1965.




  99. 1 Q. Please tell this court where you were born?

    2 A. I was born in Busovaca, in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    3 Q. What is your ethnicity, Mr. Hajdarevic?

    4 A. I am a Muslim, a Bosniak.

    5 Q. And your religion?

    6 A. I do not understand, I am a Muslim.

    7 Q. Your religion would be Islam?

    8 A. Yes, Islam.

    9 Q. Prior to 1993, you lived in Busovaca?

    10 A. Yes.

    11 Q. Were you employed at the time?

    12 A. Yes.

    13 Q. Where were you employed?

    14 A. In a building construction enterprise called Nisko

    15 Gradna Busovaca.

    16 Q. For how long were you employed in that company?

    17 A. I think for about three years, because before that,

    18 I worked in Medjapan and Vatro Stelna, also in Busovaca,

    19 but the last company I worked for was Nisko Gradna.

    20 Q. Until when were you employed in Nisko Gradna?

    21 A. Until the outbreak of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and

    22 my work booklet is still in that same enterprise, so

    23 that my labour relationship has not been broken off.

    24 Q. At any point in time were you mobilised into the

    25 Territorial Defence?




  100. 1 A. Yes.

    2 Q. When was that?

    3 A. On 16th April 1992, when the aggression was carried out

    4 against Bosnia-Herzegovina by Serbia.

    5 Q. After you were mobilised, did you at any point in time

    6 have to serve in any part of Busovaca?

    7 A. Not in Busovaca. At that time, because the Serbian

    8 Chetnik aggressor was attacking certain parts of the

    9 municipalities of Iljos and Visoko. As a member of the

    10 Territorial Defence, I was deployed on the front-line for

    11 some 15 days in June, then in September and then again

    12 in December 1992.

    13 Q. What was the situation like in Busovaca by about

    14 December 1992?

    15 A. It is rather difficult to explain that situation in

    16 brief, but I shall try and be as concise as possible.

    17 Members of the Territorial Defence wanted to defend the

    18 integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina, whereas the HVO members

    19 at that time were always within certain armed forces,

    20 but they focused more on obstructing the work of the

    21 government in Busovaca itself and were trying to place

    22 the town in a blockade. I do not know whether that is

    23 sufficient.

    24 Q. When they tried to place the town in a blockade, what

    25 happened thereafter?




  101. 1 A. Various incidents occurred, starting from mistreatment

    2 and harassment, disarming of members of the TO, and even

    3 plundering and looting of some resources. For instance,

    4 I know that some vehicles from us that were going for

    5 Slovenia were confiscated by the HVO, so all kinds of

    6 looting and plunder occurred.

    7 Q. Could you tell this court when the incidents began?

    8 A. Somewhere around October, I think. Even before that,

    9 there were some minor incidents, but these were resolved

    10 by negotiation. But as from October, as far as I can

    11 recall, they took over a number of institutions in the

    12 municipality, the police.

    13 Q. Could you tell us who took over -- you said "a number of

    14 institutions in the municipality", and the police were

    15 taken over; who took over those institutions?

    16 A. The political leadership of the HDZ and, of course, with

    17 the armed units of the HVO.

    18 Q. You said there were incidents of harassment and

    19 mistreatment?

    20 A. Yes, Muslim intellectuals were taken into custody by the

    21 HVO for some sort of interrogations. The Muslim coffee

    22 shops, shops and property were blown up. Just before

    23 the outbreak of the conflict, there was a murder.

    24 Mirsad Delija was murdered. All this heightened

    25 tension, caused fear among the Muslim population living




  102. 1 in Busovaca.

    2 Q. Do you recall when Mirsad Delija was killed? Do you

    3 remember the date?

    4 A. Not exactly, but I think it was on 21st January.

    5 I think it was 21st January.

    6 Q. Of which year was that?

    7 A. 1993, just before the conflict.

    8 Q. As far as you were concerned, when the situation in

    9 Busovaca was getting out of hand, what steps did you

    10 take with regard to the safety and security of your

    11 family?

    12 A. Somewhere around 15th January, I simply moved my family

    13 from Busovaca to stay with another family that is

    14 related to us, in the interests of their safety, because

    15 there were increasingly frequent explosions and blowing

    16 up of establishments.

    17 Q. When you were mobilised into the TO, were you in

    18 possession of a firearm?

    19 A. Not at first, however later --

    20 Q. When were you given a firearm?

    21 A. After the first time I went to the front in Visoko,

    22 I had a pistol of 7.62 calibre, issued by the

    23 Territorial Defence, and I had a licence to carry it.

    24 Q. Was that pistol at any point in time confiscated from

    25 you?




  103. 1 A. Yes.

    2 Q. Do you recall when it was confiscated? If you do not,

    3 it is all right. If you remember approximately.

    4 A. I cannot remember the exact date. I have a certificate

    5 somewhere, which I have shown to the Tribunal, and on

    6 that certificate is the exact date, but I cannot

    7 remember it now.

    8 Q. Was it before the killing of Mirsad Delija, or was it

    9 after? The confiscation of your weapon was before the

    10 killing of Mirsad Delija or after?

    11 A. Before.

    12 Q. Do you remember who confiscated your pistol?

    13 A. Yes, members of the regional HVO police, a man called

    14 Dusko Prusac and Darko Marusic.

    15 Q. You said to this Chamber a while ago that Mirsad Delija

    16 was killed on 21st January 1993, is that right?

    17 A. I think it was then.

    18 Q. Did you attend his funeral?

    19 A. Yes, I did.

    20 Q. When was that?

    21 A. The 22nd, I think, or the 23rd, maybe.

    22 Q. Do you remember the day after Mirsad Delija's funeral?

    23 A. Yes, I do.

    24 Q. Was that the day on which you were arrested?

    25 A. On the 24th, yes.




  104. 1 Q. Where were you arrested on the 24th?

    2 A. I was arrested at the railway station opposite the bus

    3 station in Busovaca, in front of the UNPROFOR base.

    4 I think that the UNPROFOR policemen were accommodated in

    5 that base at the time.

    6 Q. Together with you, was anybody else also arrested?

    7 A. Yes, my father.

    8 Q. What was his name?

    9 A. Sead Hajdarevic.

    10 Q. Who arrested you on 24th January?

    11 A. Members of the HVO.

    12 Q. How did you know that they were members of the HVO?

    13 A. Because they had the insignia. I do not remember which

    14 side, on their sleeves they had the HVO insignia.

    15 I knew some of them personally.

    16 Q. Do you recall the names of those persons who arrested

    17 you?

    18 A. Yes.

    19 Q. Who are they?

    20 A. Zeljo Sakic and the other one's name was also Zeljo, but

    21 I do not know his surname. He was nicknamed "Bubreg",

    22 or "Kidney".

    23 Q. What time of the day was it that you were arrested?

    24 A. At 6.15 in the afternoon.

    25 Q. After you were arrested, where were you taken to?




  105. 1 A. When I was arrested, we were taken to the bus station

    2 where they had a military police outpost and since we

    3 knew the commander of that police, his name was Vlado

    4 Cosic, we insisted that he receive us to tell us why we

    5 were being arrested. However, they did not allow this

    6 and after that, they locked us up in the anteroom to the

    7 toilet at the same bus station.

    8 Q. You and your father Sead were both taken together?

    9 A. Yes.

    10 Q. When you were taken to this anteroom in the bus station,

    11 did you see others whom you knew who had been arrested?

    12 A. Yes, there were already four or five men there who were

    13 brought there before us, and in the meantime, Mirsad

    14 Dizdarevic was brought there too, while we were asking

    15 to be received by the commander.

    16 Q. You said when you went there there were about four or

    17 five others. Did you know any of them who were already

    18 there, who were already arrested and kept in the bus

    19 station room?

    20 A. Yes.

    21 Q. Do you recall any names?

    22 A. Yes, there was Remsija Kutic and Mirsad Dizdarevic.

    23 Q. You said you wanted to see Vlado Cosic?

    24 A. Yes.

    25 Q. Why did you want to see him?




  106. 1 A. We wanted an explanation as to why we were arrested, the

    2 reasons for it, because it was not clear to us why we

    3 were being detained.

    4 Q. Did you ever have the opportunity to see Vlado Cosic?

    5 A. Not at that time.

    6 Q. At that time, were you given the reasons for your

    7 arrest?

    8 A. No, but before the arrest, this Zeljo, whose nickname

    9 was Bubreg, he first saw us at the bus station and when

    10 he realised who -- recognised myself and my father, he

    11 told my father and me to go home, because there was some

    12 kind of a conflict near Kacuni and not to leave the

    13 house. However, Zeljo Sakic, who was also there, said

    14 we should be detained at their police station there at

    15 the bus station.

    16 Q. So for how long were you detained at the bus station,

    17 Mr. Hajdarevic?

    18 A. I think about four hours, so that around 10.00 we were

    19 transferred to the Kaonik camp, which was the former

    20 barracks of the JNA.

    21 Q. I will come to that. Before you were transferred, you

    22 said you were kept there for about four hours. About

    23 how many others were there at the time before you were

    24 transported, about how many people altogether were

    25 arrested and detained?




  107. 1 A. Up to ten people.

    2 Q. So after about four hours at this bus station room, you

    3 were transported to Kaonik, you said.

    4 A. Yes.

    5 Q. How were you transported by Kaonik? By what means of

    6 transport were you taken to Kaonik?

    7 A. By bus.

    8 Q. Where in Kaonik were you taken to?

    9 A. We were taken to the hangars. There was a hangar which

    10 had already been reconstructed as a prison, with cells.

    11 At the entrance to Kaonik, which was the former

    12 barracks, this is where the former JNA was, that is

    13 where they took us and then they put us in one of the

    14 hangars where I assumed they used to keep some

    15 equipment.

    16 Q. Had you been to this Kaonik barracks before?

    17 A. No.

    18 Q. You said you were taken to Kaonik and the bus took you

    19 to Kaonik, and how were you taken to the hangar?

    20 A. When we entered the compound of this former barracks,

    21 the bus came to a stop in front of the first building,

    22 the first structure that is there in this compound.

    23 Then we were taken out of the bus and, under escort,

    24 taken to this prison.

    25 MR. MEDDEGODA: Could you please show to this court where you




  108. 1 had alighted at Kaonik and which building you were taken

    2 to in Kaonik?

    3 Your Honours, may I be permitted to show this map

    4 of Kaonik, which I move to mark as Exhibit P8.

    5 Mr. Hajdarevic, could you please show us the place

    6 at which you and the others had to alight when you were

    7 brought to Kaonik that evening?

    8 A. The evening when we were brought in, the bus entered the

    9 compound and we had to alight the bus at this place and

    10 then we went down this road to this hangar here.

    11 Q. Could you please mark the building at the place at which

    12 you alighted with a marker, please?

    13 A. (Witness marks map).

    14 Q. You alighted the bus at that point and then you and

    15 others had to walk along that road and you walked under

    16 escort?

    17 A. Yes.

    18 Q. You came walking along that road until you got to

    19 another building which you just showed us?

    20 A. Yes.

    21 Q. Could you please mark that building as well with the

    22 marker?

    23 A. (Witness marks map).

    24 MR. MEDDEGODA: Your Honours, on Exhibit P8, if the first

    25 building may be marked as A and the second building may




  109. 1 be marked as B. Could the witness be asked to mark,

    2 usher, as A the first building on P8 and the second

    3 building as B.

    4 You were brought, you said, to building B, which

    5 you just marked on the document P8.

    6 A. Yes.

    7 Q. After you were brought to that building, where were you

    8 kept inside that building?

    9 A. After we arrived in this building, we were put in the

    10 cell number 1, myself, my father, Mirsad Dizdarevic and

    11 Remsija Kutic.

    12 Q. Do you recall how many cells were there in total in that

    13 building?

    14 A. I think there were 12, 11 or 12.

    15 Q. Could you describe this cell in which you were detained,

    16 the size of the cell in which you were detained?

    17 A. Yes, the cell in which I was, cell number 1, was maybe 3

    18 by 2, maybe even smaller. Inside the cell, there were

    19 wooden cots so to speak, I do not know if that is the

    20 right expression, like beds.

    21 Q. Was that the place that you were expected to sleep

    22 inside the cell?

    23 A. Yes.

    24 Q. How long were you detained in cell number -- in the

    25 first cell in which you were detained?




  110. 1 A. I think up to ten days.

    2 Q. So that was cell number 1?

    3 A. Yes.

    4 Q. In that hangar building, which side was cell number 1

    5 situated?

    6 A. It was to the left immediately next to the entrance to

    7 the door, so immediately to the left -- it was the first

    8 cell to the left.

    9 Q. Were there cells constructed on either side and was

    10 there a corridor in the middle? How were the cells

    11 constructed?

    12 A. Yes, along the hangar there was a hallway, and on either

    13 side there were cells along the hallway, and the

    14 entrance to the building was approximately in the middle

    15 of it, of the building.

    16 Q. For how long was your father detained in cell number 1?

    17 A. Two or three days, because they constantly kept bringing

    18 in Muslims, Salih Dizdarevic.

    19 Q. Who is Salih Dizdarevic?

    20 A. He is the father of Mirsad Dizdarevic. Otherwise, he

    21 was a man of religion, he was the President of the

    22 Islamic community in Busovaca.

    23 Q. He was also brought in. How many days after you were

    24 detained was Salih Dizdarevic brought into detention?

    25 A. He was detained the next day and many other people whom




  111. 1 I did not see immediately. However, he and -- I cannot

    2 remember the first name but last name is Krivosija, the

    3 two of them were also brought to our cell. Many other

    4 people were brought to other cells, but I could not see

    5 them, nor did I know of them immediately.

    6 Q. For how long was your father detained in the cell, Sead

    7 Hajdarevic?

    8 A. Three to four days and then since the cells were

    9 overcrowded, there were many people crammed in there,

    10 the older ones were released from the camp to go home,

    11 so it was almost some kind of house arrest, they did not

    12 have freedom of movement.

    13 Q. For how long were the older ones detained in the camp?

    14 A. I think three to four days, depending on who was brought

    15 in when, because every day they were bringing in more

    16 people.

    17 Q. Do you know for how long Salih Dizdarevic was detained

    18 in the camp?

    19 A. I think three days, because my father was there from the

    20 first day, so that it was four days and then Salih would

    21 have been there three days.

    22 Q. Was there any office in the building in which you were

    23 detained?

    24 A. Yes, there was a small office to the right of the

    25 entrance to the building where there were the guards,




  112. 1 the camp commander, his deputies and so on.

    2 Q. Did you see the camp commander when you were detained in

    3 cell number 1?

    4 A. Yes.

    5 Q. How many days after you were detained did you see the

    6 camp commander?

    7 A. I think on the second day, when Salih Dizdarevic was

    8 brought in, because he protested with the commander, the

    9 camp commander, so that we could see him in the hallway

    10 as Salih came out and that is when I saw him for the

    11 first time, because the cells were closed and we could

    12 not see much.

    13 Q. Did you learn who the camp commander was?

    14 A. Yes.

    15 Q. Who was he?

    16 A. Aleksovski, the gentleman that is sitting over there to

    17 my left.

    18 Q. How did you know that he was the camp commander?

    19 A. I found out from the guards whom I personally knew, and

    20 I spoke to some of them, and also the gentleman issued

    21 certain orders to the guards, so it was not difficult to

    22 conclude this.

    23 Q. In cell number 1, when you were detained in cell number

    24 1, did you have any toilet facilities in that cell?

    25 A. Not in the cell.




  113. 1 Q. Did you have any toilet facilities in the building in

    2 which you were detained?

    3 A. Yes, there was a toilet in the building, but a makeshift

    4 one without any hygienic conditions. It was on the

    5 left-hand side of the hallway in the building.

    6 Q. Did you have free use of the toilet facility?

    7 A. No, if somebody needed to use the toilet, we had to

    8 knock on the door of the cell and if the guard who was

    9 there, if he saw it fit, he would then allow us to go to

    10 the toilet.

    11 Q. For how long were you in cell number 1?

    12 A. I think up to ten days, and then I was transferred to

    13 cell number 5 and then later to cell number 4. They

    14 were transferring us because many of the cells were

    15 overcrowded and so wherever there would be a little

    16 opening, a little space, that is where we would be put.

    17 Q. So you were first transferred to cell number 5, you

    18 said?

    19 A. Yes.

    20 Q. How many others were detained in cell number 5 on that

    21 occasion?

    22 A. It is hard to remember right now, about 15, 12 to 15,

    23 somewhere around there.

    24 Q. For how long were you detained in cell number 5?

    25 A. I think I only stayed there for two days, and then I was




  114. 1 moved to cell number 4.

    2 Q. Do you remember how many people were detained in cell

    3 number 4?

    4 A. In cell number 4 we were ten.

    5 Q. Were you ever transferred from cell number 4?

    6 A. No, I stayed there until the day when I was exchanged,

    7 when the Red Cross organised our exchange. I remained

    8 in that cell until that day.

    9 Q. In January when you were arrested it was the winter

    10 months.

    11 A. Yes.

    12 Q. Was it cold at that time?

    13 A. We have cold weather during that season; that particular

    14 year there were not terrible colds.

    15 Q. Did you have sufficient heating facilities in your

    16 cells?

    17 A. No, we did not.

    18 Q. During the period of your detention, did you have

    19 facilities for religious observances in the place of

    20 detention?

    21 A. At first when Salih Dizdarevic arrived, and he has a

    22 strong personality, and he insisted with the warden to

    23 set up conditions for those who wanted to observe

    24 religious rites and after the conversation with the

    25 warden, we found out these rites could be performed in




  115. 1 the cell, but that it should not be done aloud.

    2 However, after the release of Salih Dizdarevic

    3 from the camp, these activities were interrupted and the

    4 people who were in this camp did not have hygienic

    5 conditions in which they could perform these rites.

    6 Q. Why do you say they did not have hygienic conditions to

    7 perform the rites?

    8 A. Because we could not wash our hands, we could not drink

    9 water when we wanted to do it and as far as I recall, at

    10 the door to the toilet in the camp, there was a barrel

    11 filled with water and a small mug and that is how we

    12 could drink water from there, but we had no conditions

    13 to wash -- to have ablutions, because this is what needs

    14 to be done before the rite.

    15 Q. At the time you were detained in the camp at Kaonik,

    16 were you taken out for deployment or work?

    17 A. Yes, I was taken to dig three times to the front-lines

    18 and naturally I was escorted by armed guards, members of

    19 the HVO.

    20 Q. You said you were taken three times to dig trenches?

    21 A. Yes.

    22 Q. Were you taken alone when you were taken for trench

    23 digging?

    24 A. No, we were taken there as a group.

    25 Q. How many of you were taken for trench digging on these




  116. 1 three separate occasions?

    2 A. It depended on the demands of their commanders. However

    3 many people they needed, that is how many went. They

    4 would simply come to the camp, they would come into the

    5 hallway, they would call people out by their names and

    6 we would have to respond wherever we were, in whatever

    7 cell, and then the guards would take us to dig trenches

    8 on the front-lines.

    9 Q. What was the first occasion on which you were taken for

    10 trench digging?

    11 A. I cannot remember the exact date, because I preferred

    12 not to remember many things.

    13 Q. Where were you taken to the first time for trench

    14 digging?

    15 A. The first time I was taken to Presage.

    16 Q. When you were taken to Presage, were you taken alone or

    17 were others taken with you?

    18 A. No, there were other people too.

    19 Q. On that occasion, how did they select you for trench

    20 digging?

    21 A. They simply had an order, they made a list and they came

    22 into the hallway and they started calling people out and

    23 you simply had to answer, and then the guard would open

    24 the door, the guard would turn you over to the person

    25 who came to get these people and they would take you up




  117. 1 to those places and you would do whatever you were told

    2 to do.

    3 Q. Who would bring the list?

    4 A. Mostly the guards read those lists out, the prison

    5 guards, they were reading them.

    6 Q. When you came out upon hearing your name, who would take

    7 you out of the camp?

    8 A. Then we would be taken over by the HVO members, either

    9 the commanders or regular soldiers, whoever came.

    10 Q. So when you were taken to Presage for trench digging,

    11 that was the procedure adopted for selection for trench

    12 digging?

    13 A. Yes.

    14 Q. Were you taken elsewhere for trench digging?

    15 A. Yes, I was taken to Poodle and Kuala. This is an area

    16 of Kuala, Kuala is a more general term, it is a larger

    17 area but I am referring to the area known as Donje Kula,

    18 lower Kula.

    19 MR. MEDDEGODA: Your Honours, may I be permitted to show to

    20 the witness a map of the area which I intend to mark as

    21 Prosecution Exhibit 9.

    22 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Can you please show it to the Defence

    23 first?

    24 MR. MEDDEGODA: Mr. Hajdarevic, could you please show us on

    25 the map that you have before you, Exhibit P9, Prosje




  118. 1 where you were first taken for trench digging?

    2 A. The first time I was taken here, but it cannot be seen

    3 very well. It would be Prosje, it is somewhere round

    4 here. It is shown here as a village on this map, but we

    5 were above the village, here somewhere (indicates).

    6 Q. You were above the village of Prosje?

    7 A. Yes.

    8 JUDGE VOHRAH: I think we have been given the wrong map.

    9 MR. MEDDEGODA: When you were taken to Prosje for trench

    10 digging, how long did you have to dig trenches for?

    11 A. Until we finished a certain part of the task that was

    12 assigned to us, so we had to stay as long as it took.

    13 That time we finished it quickly, so we did not stay

    14 long, about eight hours.

    15 Q. Could you please mark the area of Prosje on that map

    16 with a coloured marker? Please place a letter A on that

    17 area.

    18 A. (Witness marks map).

    19 Q. On the second occasion when you were taken for trench

    20 digging, where were you taken to?

    21 A. The second time I was taken to Podjele.

    22 Q. Could you please mark Podjele on the map? Could you

    23 mark it as B, Mr. Hajdarevic?

    24 A. (Witness marks map).

    25 Q. How long after the first trench digging, how many days




  119. 1 after the first trench digging were you taken to Podjele

    2 for trench digging?

    3 A. I think it was three or four days afterwards.

    4 Q. So after trench digging in Prosje you were brought back

    5 to the camp?

    6 A. Yes.

    7 Q. What was the procedure adopted for selection for trench

    8 digging in Podjele about three or four days later?

    9 A. The same principle, the same method was applied,

    10 everything was the same. They would simply come, call

    11 out, call you out, you had to answer and then they would

    12 take you wherever they thought it to be necessary.

    13 Q. Who would call out the names?

    14 A. The guards in the camp.

    15 Q. Who would take you for trench digging?

    16 A. HVO members.

    17 Q. On the second occasion, for how long were you digging

    18 trenches in Podjele?

    19 A. Four to five hours. We did not even work there, because

    20 their commander -- Podjele before the war was inhabited

    21 by Serbs and then after Croats from Kotovaros settled

    22 there and then their commander probably wanted to act as

    23 a gentleman and he would not let us dig, he talked to us

    24 just like that.

    25 Q. You said you were also taken to Kula for trench digging?




  120. 1 A. Yes.

    2 Q. Even on that occasion, the guards would come and read

    3 out the list of names?

    4 A. Yes.

    5 Q. How many of you were taken to Kula for trench digging?

    6 A. On that occasion, about 20 of us were taken.

    7 Q. When you came out of your cells, the HVO would take you

    8 to Kula?

    9 A. Yes.

    10 Q. Could you please mark with the letter C the place Kula

    11 where you were taken for trench digging?

    12 A. Kula is a wider area, the name applies to this whole

    13 area, but I will indicate the exact spot where we were

    14 put up in a house and it was in the surroundings of that

    15 house that we did the digging. Shall I put a letter C?

    16 Q. Mark it with C, yes.

    17 A. (Witness marks map).

    18 Q. For how long did you dig trenches at Kula?

    19 A. We were kept there for 36 hours.

    20 Q. How many of you were taken to Kula for trench digging?

    21 A. Twenty or so, I cannot remember the exact number, but

    22 there was quite a large group of us, because upon our

    23 arrival here in this area, the HVO combatants first

    24 lined us up, then they robbed us. They took away our

    25 money, any valuables, gold, even some clothing, they




  121. 1 took my shoes and my jacket. One of the soldiers said

    2 he needed it more for his operations than I did in the

    3 camp. They gave me an old pair of boots.

    4 Having robbed us there, they divided us up into

    5 two groups. One group stayed here near these houses to

    6 dig, whereas the rest of us were taken somewhere around

    7 here, right to these buildings, to dig trenches

    8 (indicates). This other group that stayed behind did

    9 the same.

    10 Q. Where did they dig trenches, the other group that you

    11 are referring to?

    12 A. They stayed near the houses that I have marked; that is

    13 the place where we were taken, whereas we were taken

    14 about 700 or 800 metres beyond those buildings, through

    15 a wood and some meadows to dig trenches for their

    16 fighters.

    17 Q. How many of you were in your group?

    18 A. Ten.

    19 Q. Did you know any others who were in your group?

    20 A. Yes, I knew some of them.

    21 Q. Who are they, by name?

    22 A. There was Alija Beslic, then Lulo, I cannot recall his

    23 surname, then Meho Beslic, Alija Beslic, Adnan Malkic

    24 and some others whose names I cannot recall just now.

    25 Q. In Kula when your group was engaged in trench digging,




  122. 1 you said you had to dig for about 36 hours.

    2 A. Yes.

    3 Q. Did you dig for 36 hours continuously without a break?

    4 A. We had a break of about 45 minutes, the time needed to

    5 take us from this spot to these houses. Probably they

    6 were changing shifts, so they brought us back and then

    7 they took us back during the night to do some more

    8 digging.

    9 During the digging, we were not allowed to stand

    10 upright, we had to keep working, because if you did

    11 stretch your back then the soldier who saw you would hit

    12 you either with his rifle butt or would kick you or

    13 would hit you with anything else. Before that, as soon

    14 as we had been brought there to this location where we

    15 were digging the trenches, one of their soldiers

    16 systematically mistreated and beat people to find out

    17 whether people had any valuables concealed.

    18 He beat me personally, I had two broken ribs on

    19 the right-hand side, I had to kneel before him for him

    20 to ask me questions, all kinds of questions, whether

    21 I had any gold, where I kept my money, my car, weapons

    22 and so on. If he was dissatisfied with the answer, he

    23 would kick us like a football. I know that his nickname

    24 was "Chetnik". So he would take us out systematically

    25 one by one from the trench to question us, and then he




  123. 1 would send us back into the canal, where we had to keep

    2 on working without any rest, without food, without water

    3 and then the next day in the morning, they would

    4 humiliate us further. They brought us that morning for

    5 breakfast something, but when they emptied this package,

    6 we thought it was a meal, but when they emptied the box,

    7 we saw that they were just empty tins and they said,

    8 "here you are balijas, eat, this is your breakfast".

    9 Q. Do you remember the names of others who were beaten like

    10 you whilst you were digging trenches?

    11 A. All of us were beaten. I cannot remember exactly

    12 whether anyone was spared, but one of the people who was

    13 most badly hurt was Dzafic Zehrudin, who was in this

    14 other group, and Meho Beslic. They even cracked his

    15 skull and Zehrudin Dzafic had several teeth broken.

    16 I think the Red Cross has a record of this, because the

    17 injuries were visible. Meho's head was bandaged.

    18 I think they took him to a doctor upon his return to the

    19 camp.

    20 Q. Do you know whether any detainees were killed whilst

    21 trench digging in Kula?

    22 A. I personally did not see any, but after the end --

    23 Q. Do you know whether anybody was killed in Kula?

    24 A. Yes. The next day when the shift arrived, there were 12

    25 people who had arrived, among whom there were two I knew




  124. 1 and unfortunately both of them were killed, Jasmin

    2 Sehovic and Nermin Elezovic. They were brought to take

    3 our place and they stayed that night and they were

    4 killed that night there. There was another killing, but

    5 again I was not an eyewitness, this was in Prosje, a man

    6 was killed, his nickname was "Cakara". I do not know

    7 his exact first name and last name, but his nickname was

    8 "Cakara".

    9 Q. After the deployment in Kula, you and the others were

    10 brought back to the camp.

    11 A. Yes.

    12 Q. Mr. Hajdarevic, when you were detained in the camp, do

    13 you recall any visits to the camp by members of

    14 international humanitarian organisations?

    15 A. Yes, the International Red Cross visited us and they

    16 registered us as prisoners. Afterwards, I think there

    17 were two visits, on this occasion and once again when

    18 they allowed anyone who wanted to write a letter for

    19 Zenica, or something like that. We sent letters but we

    20 never got any replies.

    21 Q. When the ICRC visited you, you were registered as a

    22 prisoner in Kaonik?

    23 A. Yes.

    24 MR. MEDDEGODA: Your Honours, I am moving to tender two

    25 documents, his certificate of registration issued by the




  125. 1 ICRC as a detainee and a copy of an identification card

    2 that was issued by the ICRC. The Defence may have a

    3 look at it and if I may be permitted to mark these

    4 exhibits as Prosecution Exhibits P10 and P11,

    5 your Honours.

    6 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Before continuing, M Dubuisson, what is

    7 the number of this map that was looked at?

    8 THE REGISTRAR: The one we have now on the screen, on the

    9 monitor, is exhibit number 9. It was submitted as

    10 exhibit number 9.

    11 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Could you please show these documents to

    12 Mr. Mikulicic, please?

    13 MR. MEDDEGODA: Your Honours, I have copies of the same

    14 document for the court.

    15 JUDGE VOHRAH: Do you have a copy of P9 for the court?

    16 MR. MEDDEGODA: I thought I gave a copy of P9 for the court.

    17 I am sorry if I did not tender them.

    18 THE REGISTRAR: If I may be allowed to comment regarding

    19 Exhibit P9, a copy is going to be made in a minute by

    20 the usher.

    21 MR. MEDDEGODA: May I tender copies of P10 and P11 to the

    22 court? There is a copy for the Defence as well.

    23 Your Honours, P10 would be the letter and P11 would be

    24 the copy of the identification card. May I proceed,

    25 your Honour?




  126. 1 You have before you the document marked P10 which

    2 was issued by the International Committee of the Red

    3 Cross, and P11, the document marked P11 is a copy of the

    4 identification card that was also issued to you by the

    5 International Committee of the Red Cross.

    6 A. Yes.

    7 Q. According to the document P10, do you know when you were

    8 registered by the ICRC?

    9 A. Yes.

    10 Q. When was that?

    11 A. On 2nd February 1993.

    12 Q. When the ICRC visited the camp -- how many times did the

    13 ICRC visit the Kaonik camp?

    14 A. I think apart from the time when they registered us,

    15 I think they came two more times, but I am not sure of

    16 that. Once or twice.

    17 Q. The day you were registered, were all the prisoners

    18 shown to the ICRC?

    19 A. I cannot tell you that, because we had no insight into

    20 the number of people that were there. We just knew that

    21 apart from us in those cells, locked up in the cells,

    22 there was another hangar behind this building and that

    23 there were other people brought there. But we did not

    24 know how many, whether they had been registered or not,

    25 but I assume that all of them were not registered.




  127. 1 Q. Do you know whether attempts were made to hide prisoners

    2 from the ICRC?

    3 A. Yes.

    4 Q. How do you know that?

    5 A. I know because on the day of the exchange, when we were

    6 to be released from the prison, some 20 men, among whom

    7 were some relatives and friends of mine, they were

    8 hidden and taken to a building that I think I already

    9 marked with the letter A, that is building number 1 at

    10 the entry to the camp, and they tried to conceal them.

    11 However, upon our insistence with the International Red

    12 Cross representatives that they too be released,

    13 representatives of the Red Cross insisted and they

    14 refused to leave the camp and complete the exchange

    15 until those people were brought over and released

    16 together with us.

    17 Q. That was on the day you were released from custody.

    18 A. Yes, when the exchange was to take place.

    19 Q. How long after the first visit of the ICRC were you

    20 released -- were you exchanged?

    21 A. Six days later, on 8th February the exchange took place

    22 and I was exchanged then.

    23 Q. On the day of the exchange, do you know who was present

    24 in the camp?

    25 A. Yes, the warden, the commander of the camp was there




  128. 1 then, Zlatko Aleksovski, his deputy Marko Krilic, some

    2 guards and representatives of the Red Cross, as well as

    3 their interpreter.

    4 Q. How many detainees were exchanged on that day?

    5 A. Believe me, I do not know the exact number, but at least

    6 100 or 150 of us.

    7 Q. What time of the day were you exchanged on 8th February?

    8 A. That morning, I tried to go to the toilet and one of

    9 their employees, an investigator, Zeljo Katava, saw me

    10 in the corridor and when I came out of the toilet he

    11 told me to come to be interrogated. This was about

    12 9.00. When I entered this office that they had at the

    13 entrance to the building, he asked me where I was, that

    14 they had been looking for me for five or six days, that

    15 they wanted to interrogate me, that they could not trace

    16 me and at that moment Red Cross representatives

    17 appeared, so the exchange took place at 10.00 or 11.00.

    18 As we waited for this other group of people to be

    19 released, the group that had been concealed, I think

    20 that it took a little longer, it may have been noon.

    21 Q. After you were exchanged, where were you taken to?

    22 A. After the exchange, I went to Zenica.

    23 MR. MEDDEGODA: Your Honours, I have no further questions in

    24 examination-in-chief.

    25 JUDGE RODRIGUES: Thank you, Mr. Prosecutor. I think it is




  129. 1 5.30 now, it is time for us to complete today's hearing,

    2 so we will resume work tomorrow at 10.00.

    3 Thank you very much for your testimony for today

    4 and we will see you again tomorrow. Thank you.

    5 (5.30 pm)

    6 (Hearing adjourned until 10.00 am the following day)

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