Case No IT-95-14
1 Wednesday, 20th August 1997
2 (10.00 am)
3 JUDGE JORDA: Please be seated.
4 Mr. Registrar, will you have the accused brought
5 in?
6 (Accused brought in)
7 JUDGE JORDA: Can everyone hear me? Yes? Mr. Blaskic, can
8 you hear me?
9 MR. BLASKIC: Good morning, your Honour, I hear you well.
10 JUDGE JORDA: Good morning. Mr. Prosecutor, you have the
11 floor.
12 MR. HARMON: Good morning, Mr. President, good morning
13 counsel. Good morning, your Honours.
14 I would like to call as my next witness Dr. Muhamed
15 Mujezinovic.
16 (Witness entered court)
17 JUDGE JORDA: Good morning, sir. Can you hear me?
18 THE WITNESS: Yes, I can. Good morning.
19 JUDGE JORDA: Can you get up, please? Please tell the
20 Tribunal your name and surname.
21 THE WITNESS: I am Dr. Muhamed Mujezinovic from Vitez, a
22 specialist in internal medicine and occupational
23 medicine.
24 JUDGE JORDA: You are now going to read the statement that
25 has been given to you. You must have before you a text
1 in your own language which is the solemn declaration
2 that you are requested to read. Can you read it,
3 please?
4 DR MUHAMED MUJEZINOVIC (sworn)
5 JUDGE JORDA: Thank you, the Trial Chamber thanks you and
6 you can now answer the questions put to you by the
7 Prosecutor. You may be seated. Mr. Prosecutor?
8 Examined by MR. HARMON
9 Q. Good morning Dr. Mujezinovic.
10 A. Good morning.
11 Q. Could you spell your last name for the record, please?
12 A. Yes, I am Dr. Muhamed, Mujezinovic.
13 Q. Could you spell your last name, please?
14 A. M-U-J-E-Z-I-N-O-V-I-C.
15 Q. Thank you. How old are you, Dr. Mujezinovic?
16 A. I was born on 18th May 1949 in the village of Vrhovine,
17 municipality of Vitez.
18 Q. What is your profession?
19 A. I am a specialist in internal medicine and occupational
20 medicine.
21 Q. Can you describe your educational background for the
22 court?
23 A. I completed elementary school in Vitez in 1964, to
24 continue my education in a secondary medical school in
25 Sarajevo, which I completed in 1968. After that,
1 I enrolled at the Faculty of Medicine in Sarajevo.
2 I joined the Yugoslav People's Army to do my military
3 service in 1975/76. Upon my return from service,
4 I graduated from the School of Medicine in Sarajevo and
5 my first job as a doctor was in the medical centre in
6 Doboj. In 1979, upon the invitation of the authorities
7 in Vitez at the time, Dr. Franjo Tibold, who was also
8 Director of the health centre, I went back to Vitez to
9 work there as a doctor, and I worked there throughout
10 until the present time.
11 Q. Have you in addition to your professional
12 responsibilities as a doctor at the health centre held
13 any voluntary medical positions in the community of
14 Vitez?
15 A. In the community of Vitez, after working for a year
16 there, I became doctor of the medical centre in Vitez,
17 and I was then sent to specialise in internal medicine,
18 and I completed my specialisation in 1984. After that,
19 I worked in the medical centre in Vitez and in the
20 general hospital in Travnik. In 1979, I completed a
21 second course of specialisation in occupational medicine
22 and occupational diseases, and I did post-graduate
23 studies in labour capacity in Sarajevo. In addition to
24 my professional activities as a doctor, I was active in
25 all the sports clubs in Vitez as a doctor. I also
1 worked occasionally for the International Red Cross,
2 especially giving lectures for prospective blood donors.
3 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, having lived in the Vitez community most
4 of your life, I would like to ask you to describe what
5 life was like in the Vitez municipality before the start
6 of the war, what life was like between the various
7 ethnic groups in the community.
8 A. Vitez is a small industrial town with very developed
9 sports activities, and in the urban part of the
10 municipality there were about 5,500 inhabitants and in
11 the surrounding villages, which mostly had asphalt
12 roads, electricity supply, telephone lines, there was a
13 total of 28,000 inhabitants. The rate of employment was
14 very high in Vitez; there were more than 8,600 people
15 employed. I said that Vitez was a town where the
16 standard of living was relatively high in our
17 circumstances in those days. I am not aware of any
18 interethnic incidents in Vitez ever since my arrival
19 there in 1979 until 1991, roughly.
20 Q. What you have described in respect of peaceful
21 coexistence between the various ethnic groups, was that
22 also true in Busovaca municipality and Kiseljak
23 municipality?
24 A. I think it was. I never heard of any interethnic
25 strife. People from all over the former Yugoslavia
1 worked in Vitez. We had a special purpose industry, we
2 had a large number of technicians and engineers from
3 Macedonia, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, but the local
4 experts were, of course, in the majority. As I said,
5 I never heard of any interethnic incidents in the area
6 of Central Bosnia.
7 Q. I would like to turn your attention to the late 1980s
8 and the early 1990s and ask you: did political parties
9 emerge in Bosnia in that timeframe?
10 A. Until 1990, we had only one party. In 1990, several
11 political parties emerged, among them three nationalist
12 parties. In Vitez, there was the Croatian Democratic
13 Community, the party of democratic action, the Serbian
14 Democratic Party, the League of Communists, the party of
15 democratic reform, the alliance of reform, changes, the
16 Union of Socialist Alliance of Democratic Changes and
17 the Democratic Union of Socialists. There was also the
18 Croatian Party of Rights which did not participate in
19 the elections in 1990 as far as I know. There were
20 eight parties in Vitez in 1990.
21 Q. Can you identify the major nationalist political parties
22 that operated in the Vitez community?
23 A. The nationalist parties -- the main nationalist parties
24 were the Croatian Democratic Union, the Party of
25 Democratic Action, the Serbian Democratic Party and the
1 Croatian Party of Rights.
2 Q. I would like to focus your attention initially on the
3 HDZ political party. Was that the political party of
4 the Bosnian Croats?
5 A. The HDZ was the party of Bosnian Croats, but it was
6 based in Croatia, in Zagreb. It was part of the HDZ and
7 the party itself was a part of the HDZ from Croatia.
8 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, can you identify by name only the main
9 political leaders of the HDZ party?
10 A. In Vitez?
11 Q. In Vitez; that is right.
12 A. In 1990, the President of the HDZ was Anto Valenta. He
13 was a graduate technologist. Then Pero Skopljak, a
14 Master of Theology, Marijan Skopljak, Ivica Santic, also
15 a graduate technologist. I think that they were the
16 main politicians in the party of the Croatian Democratic
17 Community in Vitez.
18 Q. Turning now to the SDS party, was that the party of the
19 Bosnian Serbs?
20 A. Yes, that was the party of the Bosnian Serbs. Its
21 President was Jovica Mijatovic, a medical technician
22 from Vitez, and the vice-president was Zero Slobodan.
23 I think he was a lawyer.
24 Q. Turning next to the SDA party, was that the party of the
25 Bosnian Muslims?
1 A. Yes, the Party of Democratic Action, the SDA, was the
2 party of Bosnian Muslims. Its first President was
3 Hajrudin Karic and a year later, elections were held in
4 the SDA in Vitez, and the second President was Munib
5 Kajmovic, professor of history in Vitez.
6 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, you said there were also some minor
7 political parties that functioned in the Vitez
8 community; is that correct?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Could you identify each of those parties and their
11 leaders, and at the same time, Dr. Mujezinovic, could you
12 also identify if they were associated with any
13 particular ethnic group.
14 A. The League of Communists, the party of democratic
15 changes, its President was Nevin Karadzic; the Union of
16 Socialist Youth, the Democratic Union, its President was
17 Asim Sibro. The Union of Reformist Changes, the
18 Reformist Party, the President was Suad Salkic, a
19 graduate engineer, electrical engineer. The Democratic
20 Union of Socialists, its President was Josip Silic, a
21 professor from Vitez. Those were the parties which were
22 not nationalist, and which mainly fostered the
23 traditions of the prewar parties, some to a lesser, some
24 to a greater extent.
25 Q. Did you have a role in the SDA political party, and if
1 so, can you describe what it was?
2 A. Until August 1991, I did not have any role in the Party
3 of Democratic Action. At the elections in August 1991,
4 I was elected to the executive board of the SDA for
5 Vitez, and as the first vice-president of the party for
6 Vitez. Actually, that was when I joined actively in the
7 work of the party. Until that date, I never took an
8 active part in politics.
9 Q. What were your duties and responsibilities in that
10 particular capacity as the Deputy President of the
11 Municipal Executive Board?
12 A. In the absence of the President, I would stand in for
13 him on the Executive Board. My activity in Vitez
14 focused on the formation of humanitarian and cultural
15 societies in Vitez in 1991. That is how we formed the
16 Muslim humanitarian organisation Merhamet and the
17 cultural society of Muslims, Renaissance. In addition
18 to my professional duties and the other activities
19 I engaged in that I have already described, I took an
20 active part in the work of these newly-formed cultural
21 and humanitarian societies.
22 Q. Did you have an official position in Merhamet?
23 A. Yes, I was the vice-president of Merhamet, and also in
24 the cultural society of Muslims, I was also the
25 vice-president.
1 Q. Could you just explain briefly what Merhamet was?
2 A. Merhamet is a humanitarian organisation whose policy was
3 to help the elderly, the frail, the refugees, the
4 displaced persons, people in need of relief, to help
5 them find accommodation, clothing, food, education,
6 medical treatment. Those were the programme objectives
7 of the Merhamet. It was linked to the network of
8 Merhamet societies throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina and
9 beyond Bosnia-Herzegovina, so that we had organisations
10 in Rijeka, Split, Zagreb, Maribor, Ljublijana; in
11 Germany, Austria, Switzerland. This was a purely
12 humanitarian organisation.
13 Q. I would like you to turn your attention to the cultural
14 and art association, Preporod. Can you briefly describe
15 to the court what activities that organisation engaged
16 in.
17 A. Our aim in Vitez was to reactivate the culture of
18 Bosnian Muslims, to revive folklore, poetry, literature,
19 through public fora. As it operated only briefly we
20 held in Vitez only two performances, at which writers
21 and poets performed, and we collaborated with the
22 Croatian cultural society Napredak, of which I was also
23 a member.
24 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, I was going to turn to that area next.
25 Did the Bosnian Croats have similar charitable and
1 cultural organisations and, if so, could you identify
2 them by name?
3 A. Yes, the Bosnian Croats had the charitable organisation
4 in Vitez called Caritas, and a culture society of
5 Bosnian Croats called Napredak. As far as I know, they
6 had the same programmes as the charitable and cultural
7 societies of the Muslims. We co-operated with both
8 Caritas and Napredak.
9 Q. Were you a member of one of those Croatian cultural or
10 charitable organisations?
11 A. Yes, I was a member of the cultural society of Bosnian
12 Croats, Napredak, the President of which was Zvonimir
13 Cilic.
14 Q. Was there essentially meetings between the two,
15 collaboration between the two cultural organisations and
16 charitable organisations?
17 A. The cultural society Preporod and Napredak -- I had
18 worked in Vitez for many years and we were together
19 active in sports and preventive activities, so we agreed
20 on joint actions, joint performances. Unfortunately in
21 Vitez we organised only one such joint event. We had
22 the well-known poet from Sarajevo, Dzamahudin Lazic and
23 Zeljko Ivandic who made guest appearances in Vitez, and
24 this was jointly organised by us. As the war broke out
25 shortly after that, we did not have any further
1 opportunity nor the necessary conditions to further this
2 co-operation.
3 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, I would now like to turn to a different
4 topic and that is the elections that were held in the
5 Vitez municipality. First of all, could you tell us
6 when they were held?
7 A. I was not actively involved, but when I had time,
8 I attended the public rallies of all the parties. The
9 elections were held in November 1990.
10 Q. What were the results of those elections? If you could,
11 could you identify the number of seats that were won by
12 each of the respective political parties that
13 campaigned?
14 A. The Municipal Parliament, or Assembly as we called it,
15 had 60 delegates or representatives in it. The majority
16 of seats were held by the HDZ, 23; they had, 23 seats.
17 The SDA, the party of Bosnian Muslims, had 16; the
18 Serbian Democratic Party had 2; the League of
19 Communists, the party of democratic change had 9; the
20 party of -- the reformist party had 7; the Democratic
21 Union of Socialist Youth had 2, and the Democratic Union
22 of Socialists, 1 seat. There was a total of 60 deputies
23 in the Municipal Assembly.
24 Q. So the elected deputies formed a governing body, the
25 Municipal Assembly; is that correct?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. What were the functions of the Municipal Assembly?
3 A. The Municipal Assembly had authority and its President
4 from the HDZ, Ivan Santic, was President of Parliament
5 and he convened the Parliament as necessary by the
6 orders, decisions and conclusions adopted by the
7 Municipal Assembly. All other institutions in the
8 municipality were guided by those decisions and that
9 applies to the municipal government, the police, the
10 defence, the economy. In fact life as a whole and the
11 organisation of life in Vitez was run by the Municipal
12 Assembly or Parliament.
13 Q. Who was the head of the Municipal Assembly?
14 A. The head of the Municipal Assembly was a representative
15 of the HDZ, Mr. Ivan Santic, a graduate technologist from
16 Vitez.
17 Q. He was a Croat; is that correct?
18 A. Yes, he was a Croat.
19 Q. Was there an Executive Board or President of the
20 government?
21 A. I said that the Parliament, the Municipal Assembly, was
22 the authority that issued orders, and the municipal
23 government or the Municipal Executive Board had
24 executive power, and it was chaired by Mr. Fuad Kaknjo,
25 an electrical engineer from the SDA.
1 Q. Mr. Kaknjo was a Muslim, that is correct?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Briefly, can you explain the relationship between the
4 Municipal Assembly and the government?
5 A. The new assembly, or rather the new government was set
6 up and started operating only at the beginning of 1991.
7 During the first year of its work, I do not know of any
8 problems that existed between the Parliament and
9 government and their mutual relationship. The
10 Parliament did its job; the government did its job. Of
11 course, there were certain disagreements which was only
12 natural, but all decisions were carried through. There
13 was very good co-operation between the President of the
14 Municipal Assembly and the President of the government
15 in the municipality of Vitez.
16 Q. How often did the Municipal Assembly convene?
17 A. I was not a member of the Municipal Assembly. The
18 President of the Municipal Assembly convened the
19 Assembly when necessary. I really do not know how often
20 they met. I was not actively involved because I was not
21 a member of the Municipal Parliament.
22 MR. HARMON: Your Honours, I have on the easel a photocopy of
23 what is exhibit 45 and I would ask that that be marked
24 as Prosecutor's exhibit 45B.
25 JUDGE JORDA: Has this been admitted? It differs from 45,
1 Mr. Prosecutor?
2 MR. HARMON: Yes, your Honour, I am going to use this with
3 this particular witness and have him make markings on it
4 and then ask that it be admitted as 45B.
5 JUDGE JORDA: Very well.
6 MR. HARMON: Dr. Mujezinovic, would you please approach the
7 large photograph that is on the easel, and with a green
8 pen, would you circle the buildings where the Municipal
9 Assembly met?
10 A. This was the building of the Municipal Assembly in Vitez
11 (indicates).
12 Q. Would you mark a circle in green around those buildings,
13 please, Dr. Mujezinovic? Where is the Municipal Assembly
14 building in relation to the hotel Vitez?
15 A. Across the street is the hotel Vitez. Do you want me to
16 circle that too?
17 Q. No, that is all right. You can take your seat again,
18 Mr. Mujezinovic. Thank you very much.
19 A. No, this is the hotel and this is the post office in
20 Vitez. This is the hotel and this is the post office
21 (indicates).
22 Q. Thank you Dr. Mujezinovic. You can take your seat
23 again. Earlier in your testimony, you identified some
24 significant individuals who played a role in the HDZ
25 political party, one of whom was Anto Valenta. After
1 the elections in Vitez, what role did Anto Valenta play
2 either in the party or in the government?
3 A. Mr. Anto Valenta has a degree of technology. He worked
4 as a teacher in the Vitez High School and he held the
5 post of President of the HDZ for Vitez.
6 Q. Later on, did Anto Valenta assume a greater role in
7 Herceg-Bosna affairs?
8 A. Yes, later on I think in the latter half of 1992,
9 I think that Anto Valenta left the post of HDZ President
10 to Mr. Pero Skopljak, and Anto Valenta became the Deputy
11 President of the HDZ of Herceg-Bosna.
12 Q. What role did Pero Skopljak play in Vitez's political
13 and civil affairs after the elections in Vitez?
14 A. Pero Skopljak worked in Vitez as the head of the
15 municipal police, the MUP or SUP. He did this
16 professionally in Vitez and he was also on the Executive
17 Board of the HDZ for Vitez. I do not know about other
18 posts he held.
19 Q. When was it, Dr. Mujezinovic, that you first became aware
20 of Herceg-Bosna? Can you explain that to the court,
21 please?
22 A. At the Municipal Parliament, at the end of November
23 1991, it was said that a cultural community of the
24 Bosnian Croats was established, and the club of Members
25 of Parliament of the SDA reported to us about this at
1 the meeting of the Executive Board of the SDA in Vitez.
2 Q. What was reported to you, Dr. Mujezinovic?
3 A. It was reported to us that the President of the
4 Municipal Assembly, Mr. Ivan Santic, mentioned at the
5 Municipal Parliament that the Croatian Community of
6 Herceg-Bosna was established as the cultural community
7 of the Bosnian Croats.
8 Q. Was there any mention about the Vitez municipality
9 becoming part of Herceg-Bosna?
10 A. The delegates of the SDA, as we were told or as I was
11 told, asked what that meant. Ivan Santic answered then
12 at the Assembly that this is only a cultural community
13 of the Bosnian Croats, and that in no case, under no
14 circumstances, would it jeopardise other ethnic groups
15 in Bosnia-Herzegovina or the state of
16 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
17 Also the delegates of the SDA reported that at the
18 Municipal Parliament, some time in March 1993, they put
19 the question again as to what the Croatian Community of
20 Herceg-Bosna was, and they reached a decision that the
21 status of the municipality of Vitez could be changed
22 only if the Municipal Parliament passed such a decision
23 by a two-thirds majority vote, if this would be adopted
24 by the Municipal Assembly and we were told that this was
25 adopted unanimously.
1 Q. You just testified a moment ago, Dr. Mujezinovic, that
2 the delegates of the SDA reported at the Municipal
3 Parliament in March 1993 that they put the question as
4 to what the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna was. Was
5 that in March 1993 or 1992?
6 A. 1992, I am sorry. I am sorry, slip of the tongue.
7 1992.
8 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, how long did the Municipal Assembly
9 remain in existence?
10 A. As far as I know, we asked or we insisted at the
11 Executive Board of the SDA -- we insisted with the
12 Members of Parliament that the Assembly be continued.
13 As far as I know, the last Municipal Assembly of Vitez
14 was held some time in March, the beginning of March
15 1993, and it was not held again -- 1992.
16 Q. Okay, March 1992 the Municipal Assembly ceased to exist;
17 is that correct?
18 A. It did not work any more.
19 Q. What took its place?
20 A. At the Executive Board of the SDA, the President of the
21 SDA party for Vitez, Mr. Munib Kajmovic and the President
22 of the Executive Board of Vitez reported to us that the
23 Croatian Democratic Community proposed that a Crisis
24 Committee for the municipality of Vitez be established,
25 because we had a lot of problems in Vitez. We had a lot
1 of refugees and there was a war going on around us. We
2 accepted that, to have a body established which would
3 work faster, which would be smaller and which would
4 reach decisions on behalf of the Assembly, but this
5 Crisis Committee, this body, would have to be verified
6 officially by the Municipal Parliament. That was some
7 time in January, at the beginning of 1992.
8 Q. When you use the words "Crisis Committee", is "Crisis
9 Committee" synonymous with the term "Crisis Staff"? Let
10 me ask the question again. Dr. Mujezinovic, do the terms
11 "Crisis Committee" and the "Crisis Staff" mean the same
12 thing?
13 A. I do not know about Crisis Committee. I know about a
14 Crisis Staff only, but it can be a synonym really.
15 Q. Did the Bosnian Muslims agree with the formation of a
16 Crisis Staff?
17 A. The representatives of the SDA party agreed to that,
18 that a Crisis Staff be established in Vitez.
19 Q. Can you describe the ethnic composition of the Crisis
20 Staff, please?
21 A. In the Crisis Staff, at the beginning, there were only
22 representatives of the SDA and the HDZ. There was
23 parity; there were five Croats and five Bosnian
24 Muslims.
25 Q. Were there any Bosnian Serbs represented on the Crisis
1 Staff?
2 A. No, but they were invited from time to time.
3 Q. Can you identify the members of the HDZ political party
4 who were members of the Crisis Staff?
5 A. The President of the Crisis Staff was Mr. Ivan Santic.
6 Another member was Mr. Anto Valenta, Pero Skopljak, from
7 amongst the Croats.
8 Q. Was Marijan Skopljak a member of the Crisis Staff?
9 A. No. Josip Silic, Pero Skopljak, that is, Anto Valenta,
10 Josip Silic, Vlado Santic, and the President was Mr. Ivan
11 Santic.
12 Q. Can you identify the members of the SDA, the Bosnian
13 Muslims who were members of the Crisis Staff?
14 A. From the SDA, there was Munib Kajmovic, President of the
15 SDA party, Fuad Kaknjo, President of the Executive Board
16 for Vitez, I was there, then Sulejman Haseli and Hakija
17 Cenjic.
18 Q. Did the Crisis Staff eventually expand to include
19 representatives of important industries and factories?
20 A. Yes. Later the Crisis Staff was joined by the director
21 of the biggest factory, Mr. Krizanovic, Nikola, and
22 Mr. Vlado Divkovic and Zfikret Hajdarovic, an engineer
23 from Vitez.
24 Q. What was your role in the Crisis Staff?
25 A. My role in the Crisis Staff was to organise the medical
1 staff under war conditions, so I was in charge of the
2 medical staff under conditions of war.
3 Q. What did you do to fulfil that particular obligation?
4 A. I got an assistant, Dr. Bruno Busuk, a dentist, to work
5 together with me, and if necessary we could ask other
6 medical doctors and workers to join us. At that time in
7 Vitez, we made a reserve location for the Dom Zdravlja
8 in case of war. Also we renovated the cellar of a motel
9 in Kruscica so that these premises could be used to take
10 in wounded people or injured people. My role was also
11 to lecture on first aid in different local communities,
12 or self-assistance in cases of massive injuries and
13 wounding. Through work organisations in Vitez we did
14 this, or rather humanitarian organisations in Vitez, we
15 had done this pretty well.
16 Q. How often did the Crisis Staff meet?
17 A. The Crisis Staff met whenever necessary, sometimes very
18 often, sometimes even every day. When there were
19 problems, we would meet very often.
20 Q. When you would meet, would it be a meeting of all the
21 representatives from the SDA and from the HDZ political
22 parties; in other words would the Bosnian Croats and the
23 Bosnian Muslims meet on almost a daily basis?
24 A. Yes, we were in contact every day, because it is a small
25 town, but we also met officially whenever needed and as
1 a rule, all would be present. Mostly all of us were
2 present. If somebody would not come, a replacement
3 would always come in from that particular field.
4 Q. Generally, how long would these meetings last, on a
5 daily basis?
6 A. It depended on the current problems. Sometimes for
7 about a hour, sometimes for about four or five hours.
8 Q. How would the Crisis Staff govern? How did it implement
9 its decisions?
10 A. The Crisis Staff took over the function of the Municipal
11 Parliament, the municipal government. Actually, it was
12 the main authority in the municipality.
13 Q. So if the Crisis Staff reached a decision that related
14 to police affairs would it inform the police authorities
15 and the police authorities would then implement the
16 decision of the Crisis Staff?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Is that also true with the other functions of
19 government, with finance, with education?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. How long did the Crisis Staff continue to function?
22 When did it cease to exist?
23 A. The Crisis Staff operated until mid-June approximately,
24 or more precisely 18th June 1992.
25 Q. Turning your attention back to the meetings between the
1 Bosnian Croats and the Bosnian Muslims' representatives
2 on the Crisis Staff, during some of those meetings, were
3 threats made by the Bosnian Croat representatives to the
4 Bosnian Muslims?
5 A. At a meeting of the Crisis Staff some time in April, or
6 the beginning of May -- I cannot remember exactly when;
7 I cannot remember the exact date -- Mr. Anto Valenta,
8 then in the capacity of President of the HDZ in Vitez,
9 made it known to the representatives of the Bosnian
10 Muslims or the representatives of the SDA that in Vitez
11 they would have to be under the authority of the
12 Croatian community of Herceg-Bosna.
13 On that occasion, he advised and warned the
14 representatives of the Bosnian Muslims not to put up any
15 resistance, because the Bosnian Croats in Vitez are
16 armed 90 per cent, and the Bosnian Muslims, according to
17 his estimates, are armed to an extent of about
18 10 per cent, and he mentioned the information of HOS,
19 that they existed in Vitez then, but they were
20 negligible. We did not take it seriously at that
21 point. I even had the impression that other
22 representatives did not take him seriously either;
23 rather the representatives of the HDZ. At that meeting
24 Mr. Ivan Santic commented that Mr. Anto Valenta always
25 makes jokes, but he said, "I am speaking very seriously
1 and I am warning you", and that ended the meeting.
2 Q. You said that meeting took place either in April or
3 May. Was that in 1992 or 1993?
4 A. 1992.
5 Q. After that particular threat was made by Mr. Valenta, did
6 the situation between Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Muslims
7 remain harmonious, or did things begin to deteriorate?
8 A. To tell you quite frankly, we were very worried by this,
9 we in Vitez. In that period, in the first half of May,
10 there was not a single excess incident. The first such
11 incident in Vitez was on 20th May, when a soldier of the
12 BH-Army was killed in the hotel Vitez, and two soldiers
13 were captured, and badly beat up. That was the first
14 excess incident between the HVO, and then the TO, the
15 Territorial Defence in Vitez.
16 Q. Did you have an opportunity to examine any of those
17 soldiers who had been beaten?
18 A. Yes, I examined two soldiers who were not beaten up, but
19 badly abused. They had bruises on their bodies, on
20 their legs, on their backs, they had haematoma that were
21 all together, blended into one another. They were not
22 individual haematoma, so that is the kind of injury they
23 had sustained.
24 Q. As a result of that incident, did the Bosnian Muslims
25 request that an investigation be conducted?
1 A. Yes, Mr. Ivan Santic convened an urgent meeting of the
2 Crisis Staff. He called me after midnight, and when we
3 came, he told us that a soldier of the Territorial
4 Defence had been killed, that two soldiers were
5 captured, and we asked him to clarify things to us, to
6 tell us what was happening. This was done by the
7 commander of the HVO for Vitez, Mr. Mario Cerkez. Three
8 soldiers were in the hotel Vitez, they came into the
9 restaurant that was in the cellar of that hotel, and
10 they were provoking other people and when they were
11 walking out of the hotel, they were killed by the guard
12 who was guarding the hotel. Vukadinovic Miro was the
13 name of the guard.
14 At the Crisis Staff it was agreed that the
15 captured soldiers of the HVO be given to the military
16 police of the TO, the Territorial Defence, and start an
17 investigation of this killing. Also it was concluded
18 that the family of the killed soldier be told about what
19 had happened.
20 Q. Who was to tell the family of the killed soldier what
21 had happened?
22 A. As a medical doctor, I talked to Mr. Ivan Santic; he was
23 rather influential and popular in Vitez. I asked him to
24 come with me to tell the family about this. He refused
25 that. He said, "You Muslims work this out amongst
1 yourselves." So I waited in front of the hotel with
2 Mr. Fuad Kaknjo and the Commander of Police, Saban
3 Mahnutovic. I waited for the captured soldiers to be
4 returned and to be handed over to the TO military
5 police. I asked the Commander of the Military Police of
6 the HVO in Vitez how this had happened. He told me
7 briefly, "Doctor, can you not see that Mario Cerkez is
8 drunk? At the meeting, Mario Cerkez was half drunk. He
9 went out and he shot a soldier." I do not know why he
10 did it, but we put the man into the car; he was dead
11 already but we took him to Travnik hospital”.
12 Later, we went and told the family about it, some
13 time during the night. At 2.00 or 3.00 am we told them
14 that the soldier had lost his life, and then we asked
15 again whether the captured soldiers had been brought
16 in. The captured soldiers were brought in only the next
17 day around 1.30, or rather they were released only the
18 next day. As I said, they were badly beaten up.
19 Q. So you had received information that Mario Cerkez, who
20 is a Bosnian Croat, had been the person responsible for
21 the killing; is that correct?
22 A. Yes, I was informed that by his Commander of Military
23 Police, Ivan Budimir, who was a coach of the football
24 club and a teacher of physical education in Vitez, a
25 very nice and very popular man.
1 Q. What role did Mario Cerkez play in military affairs in
2 the Vitez community?
3 A. He was introduced to us as the Commander of the HVO, the
4 military formations for Vitez; that is the HVO brigade
5 of Vitez.
6 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, was an investigation ever concluded into
7 the killing of this particular Muslim soldier?
8 A. As far as I know, the investigating magistrate in
9 Travnik instructed the Prosecutor, Vlado Miskovic from
10 Vitez to carry out an investigation, but the
11 investigation was never completed.
12 Q. I take it Mario Cerkez was never arrested or prosecuted
13 for that particular killing?
14 A. No. The soldier, Miro Vukadinovic, who was a guard in
15 the hotel at the time -- he simply disappeared from
16 Vitez. We heard that he was somewhere in Croatia.
17 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, you said that the Crisis Committee
18 ceased to exist on 18th June 1992. Can you explain to
19 the Trial Chamber what occurred on 18th June 1992?
20 A. On 18th June, in the afternoon, there was unrest among
21 people, and I asked my neighbours, "What is up?" On
22 18th June, military formations of the HVO captured the
23 police headquarters in Vitez, and the Municipal Assembly
24 building. They raised flags of the Croatian Community
25 of Herceg-Bosna and the flags of the state of Croatia.
1 I asked Mr. Fuad Kaknjo whether he knew what was
2 happening. I called him up by phone. We were
3 neighbours; he lived in the same building. He said he
4 did not.
5 We went together to the staff building, the
6 Commander of the TO was Cenjic Hakija and on the way, we
7 met a group of HVO soldiers in full combat gear with
8 helmets. One of the soldiers was employed in the health
9 centre and I asked him, "Miro, what is happening?" He
10 said to me, "Go, flee, doctor; it is war. There are
11 snipers, somebody will kill you." Then we asked the
12 Commander of the TO, Hakija Cenjic whether he knew what
13 was happening and he said he did not. He just said
14 military formations had captured the police building,
15 the Municipal Assembly building, that they had hoisted
16 these flags, the flags of the Croatian Community of
17 Herceg-Bosna and of the state of Croatia, without the
18 flag of Bosnia-Herzegovina having been hoisted.
19 At that moment, Ivan Santic, the President of the
20 Crisis Staff, was not in Vitez. He was also President
21 of the Municipal Assembly. He was away on business
22 somewhere, I do not know where. Three days later, at
23 the meeting of the Executive Board of the SDA, Kaknjo
24 Fuad, the Prime Minister, informed us that Mr. Ivan
25 Santic had invited him to go and do his job, that of the
1 Prime Minister, that he had promised to take down the
2 flags and that the army would withdraw from the police
3 building and from the Municipal Assembly building, and
4 that the police officers of Muslim faith who happen to
5 have been -- who were employed at that moment would be
6 reemployed and that their weapons that had been seized
7 from them would be returned.
8 JUDGE JORDA: Excuse me, Mr. Prosecutor, somebody said "Prime
9 Minister". That is the first time I hear this name of
10 Prime Minister. Can we make a clarification of this
11 point, please?
12 MR. HARMON: Yes.
13 Dr. Mujezinovic, there appears on the translation
14 the term "Prime Minister". I think it probably came up
15 twice, Prime Minister in respect of Fuad Kaknjo. Fuad
16 Kaknjo was not the Prime Minister, was he? I think
17 there is an error in translation.
18 A. He was the Prime Minister. He was the President of the
19 government.
20 Q. You are using the term "President of the government" and
21 "Prime Minister" synonymously.
22 A. Yes.
23 MR. HARMON: Does that clarify it, your Honour?
24 JUDGE JORDA: Yes, thank you.
25 MR. HARMON: You mentioned, Dr. Mujezinovic, that in a meeting
1 some three days later there had been a promise made by,
2 I think, Mr. Santic that the Muslim police officers who
3 had been disarmed and lost their jobs would again regain
4 their positions and be given back their weapons as
5 police officers. Did that ever happen?
6 A. Yes. A couple of days later, they were taken back to
7 work, their weapons were returned to them, they started
8 doing their job.
9 Q. How long did they remain in their jobs?
10 A. They remained until about 20th October 1992.
11 Q. On that date, did they lose their jobs permanently?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Okay. Let me ask you just a couple of questions. The
14 municipal building where the Croatian flag and the
15 Herceg-Bosna flag were publicly displayed, that is the
16 set of buildings that you have circled in green on
17 exhibit 45B; is that correct?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. That is across the street from the hotel Vitez; is that
20 correct?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. After 18th June, when the HVO seized power in the Vitez
23 municipality, were there any announcements on radio and
24 television as to what had happened?
25 A. Yes, it was announced on radio and television, but at
1 the official meeting of members of the Crisis Staff, we
2 addressed the question as to what was happening, what is
3 going on. We did not know at the Crisis Staff meeting,
4 and then at the time Mr. Anto Valenta, as the President
5 of the Croatian Democratic Community, told us that this
6 had been done by an informal armed group, and Mr. Pero
7 Skopljak, who was Acting Chief of Police, commented with
8 the words that the Croatian people in Vitez did not have
9 the patience to wait for problems to be solved and they
10 were beginning to take things into their own hands.
11 After that, it was said that it was not the Crisis
12 Staff, the Parliament, the municipal government that had
13 been elected in November 1992 that was to govern, but a
14 new government, an HVO government, the Croatian Defence
15 Council.
16 Q. Was that repeated on radio and television; that is that
17 the HVO was now the government in the Vitez
18 municipality?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Did any of the leaders of the HDZ political party appear
21 publicly on television or radio to make such
22 announcements?
23 A. I did not watch that on television.
24 Q. Was there any comment or discussion about Vitez being
25 part of historic Croatian territory?
1 A. Yes, it was mostly Anto Valenta who said that the
2 Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna had been formed
3 already before, and that it was not a cultural community
4 of Croats but an area comprising about
5 30 municipalities, that it was an economic, political,
6 cultural and defence entity of the Bosnian Croats, and
7 that that part of Bosnia-Herzegovina was the sphere of
8 interest, or the zone of interest, of the Bosnian
9 Croats, that it was the historic right of the Croatian
10 people that vital interests were involved, and that the
11 representatives of the Croats would use all available
12 means and resources to struggle for the realisation of
13 that goal.
14 They again called on the representatives of the
15 Muslim people who had been elected at the free
16 democratic elections in November 1990 to take their
17 seats in the newly-formed, one-nation government. We
18 refused to do that, because we felt at the time that
19 only the legally-elected government can function, and
20 not any single nation government imposed by force. We
21 made it clear that the sovereignty and the legitimacy of
22 the state and the local authorities and the state had
23 been violated, and, in view of the fact that there were
24 no marks of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but
25 rather the flag of the Croatian municipality of
1 Herceg-Bosna and the Croatian state, that this was an
2 assault on the territorial integrity of Bosnia and the
3 annexation of a part of Bosnia-Herzegovina to Croatia.
4 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Prosecutor, perhaps we can have a break now
5 and resume work at 11.40. The hearing is adjourned.
6 (11.20 am)
7 (A short break)
8 (11.40 am)
9 JUDGE JORDA: Please bring in the accused.
10 (Accused brought in)
11 JUDGE JORDA: Let us continue, please, with Dr. Mujezinovic.
12 Mr. Prosecutor, continue, please.
13 MR. HARMON: Thank you, Mr. President. Dr. Mujezinovic, before
14 the break I was asking you about statements that had
15 been made about historic Croatian land and you were
16 discussing with us statements that were made by Anto
17 Valenta. Will you please continue with your testimony
18 in that respect. Dr. Mujezinovic, can you hear me?
19 A. Yes. Could you please repeat the question?
20 Q. Yes. Before the break, you were testifying about
21 statements made by Anto Valenta. Could you please
22 continue with your testimony?
23 A. Yes. At joint meetings, mostly attended by former
24 representatives of the Crisis Staff, Pero Skopljak
25 demanded that the demands of the Croatian Democratic
1 Community be carried out, and that a joint civilian
2 authority be set up with the participation in the
3 government such as to reflect the democratic elections
4 in 1990; that army units in Vitez had to place
5 themselves under the command of the HVO; and that the
6 command structure of the HVO should include the same
7 number of representatives of the Muslim community in
8 accordance with their percentage share in the units;
9 that the civilian police should be placed under the
10 command and in the service of the newly-formed
11 government, and that it should not follow the
12 instructions of the Republic MUP, but rather the
13 instructions of the newly-formed Croatian Community of
14 Herceg-Bosna.
15 Pero Skopljak made it clear that 50,000 well-armed
16 HVO troops supported this, that the whole of Croatia was
17 behind this, and, as he put it, the western
18 democratic-minded public opinion.
19 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, let me ask you, at the same time that
20 these comments were being made, were there additional
21 comments that were threatening to the Muslims? Were
22 there additional comments being made by other leaders of
23 the HVO and Herceg-Bosna?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Can you explain those comments?
1 A. In Central Bosnia, other places such as Travnik,
2 Busovaca, Novi Travnik, were having similar problems.
3 Parallel with these local negotiations, negotiations
4 were organised at the regional level, the level of the
5 Travnik region. I participated in Busovaca, Travnik,
6 Novi Travnik, and a statement by Dario Kordic, who was
7 introduced as the Vice-President of Herceg-Bosna, and an
8 HVO Colonel, were to the effect that they denounced the
9 policies of Alija Izetbegovic and the Muslim leaders.
10 I even recall a TV programme when Dario Kordic stated,
11 and this was somewhere around the beginning of March
12 1993, that the Muslims would disappear from Bosnia and
13 that Bosnia-Herzegovina would disappear thanks to the
14 policy of Alija Izetbegovic and the Muslim leaders.
15 Similarly Ignjac Kostroman at those meetings and
16 over the local media threatened, saying that these were
17 historic Croatian lands, that the Croats are ready to
18 correct historical errors, that they had been exploited
19 in these parts, humiliated, and that now they had the
20 power and the strength for the Croatian people to win
21 their rights, their historic rights, to assert those
22 right.
23 Q. Who is Ignjac Kostroman?
24 A. Ignjac Kostroman was introduced to us as the
25 Secretary-General of the Croatian Community of
1 Herceg-Bosna.
2 Q. During this same time period after the HVO seized power
3 in the Vitez municipality, did Mario Cerkez make any
4 threats?
5 A. At joint talks, the HVO formations in Vitez were always
6 represented by Mario Cerkez. For a time, but in the
7 first half of 1992, he would attend meetings -- meetings
8 were attended also occasionally by Mr. Filip Filipovic,
9 who was in Vitez in the first half of 1992. In fact
10 Mario Cerkez promised that the HVO had the strength and
11 the power to put into effect what was expected of them,
12 and that in the process they would not spare effort or
13 means to attain their goal.
14 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, after 18th June 1992, when the HVO
15 became the only executive body in the Vitez
16 municipality, what did the Muslims do for their own
17 protection?
18 MR. HAYMAN: Leading question, your Honour.
19 JUDGE JORDA: Objection rejected. Continue, Mr. Prosecutor.
20 MR. HARMON: Thank you, your Honour.
21 A. In Vitez, at the free democratic elections in 1990 in
22 Vitez, only 60 per cent of the Muslims had voted for the
23 SDA party. At a meeting of the Executive Board of the
24 party, we felt that we did not have the right, on behalf
25 of the whole Muslim community in Vitez, for us to
1 decide; we did not have the right to decide on behalf of
2 all the Muslims, so we convened a meeting of all the
3 political representatives, people of prestige in Vitez,
4 of Bosniak nationality, and we put to them the question
5 as to what the others thought about it.
6 At that meeting, which was held on 12th July, the
7 policy of the Croatian Democratic Community was
8 denounced; the single party government in Vitez was
9 denounced; a conclusion was adopted to the effect that
10 the Bosniaks in Vitez would not respect the decisions
11 and orders of such a government. They would respect
12 only those decisions which were in conformity with the
13 law, with the decisions of the Municipal Assembly, and
14 the decisions of the Presidency of the republic.
15 The proposal was made that a body be set up which
16 would monitor the work of the newly-formed government in
17 Vitez, and it was called the Co-ordination Committee for
18 the Protection of the Interests of the Muslims. It was
19 an association which had 19 members. 13 of them were
20 given specific assignments to monitor the interests and
21 any violations of the interests in various areas, and we
22 agreed to issue public announcements. This body did not
23 have the characteristics of a government. We thought
24 and sought an agreement to set up a joint authority at
25 the level of the municipality, and we initiated a
1 meeting on a broader scale at the level of the municipal
2 boards of the HDZ and the SDA in order to deal with
3 these problems, and one such meeting was held.
4 Q. Before we get to that meeting, Dr. Mujezinovic, can you
5 tell me specifically what various sectors in the
6 community of Vitez were monitored by members of the
7 Co-ordination Committee for the Protection of Muslims?
8 A. As I said, there were 19 members on this Committee,
9 people who were directly involved in monitoring finance,
10 education, health, revenues -- actually, everything in
11 Vitez, sports activities, cultural activities,
12 humanitarian activities, defence activities.
13 Q. What were the monitors supposed to do, based on
14 information they observed or received?
15 A. They were supposed to present that at these meetings,
16 and then we were supposed to make our views public
17 through the media at local, regional and republican
18 levels.
19 Q. Were you selected as one of the monitors,
20 Dr. Mujezinovic?
21 A. I was elected for monitoring health, because I am a
22 doctor. I was involved in health, to see how Bosniaks
23 were treated by doctors and what kind of medicine they
24 were given, how elderly people were treated by doctors
25 et cetera.
1 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, was there a leader of the Co-ordination
2 Committee for the Protection of Muslims?
3 A. Yes, the Chairman of this Co-ordination Committee for
4 Protecting the Interests of Muslims was Fuad Kaknjo,
5 President of the Executive Board, the municipal
6 government, and Fuad Kaknjo and other officials of the
7 Bosnian Muslims, Muslims who worked in municipal
8 institutions, received instructions to continue working
9 in the government that was elected in 1990, in November,
10 and they went to their offices regularly, they went to
11 work every day.
12 Q. Did the Co-ordination Committee for the Protection of
13 Muslims have contacts with the Bosnian government on the
14 republic level?
15 A. We only issued statements, and through Fuad Kaknjo as
16 the Prime Minister, he was in charge of contacts at
17 regional and republic levels before and after; that is
18 to say contacts with the government.
19 Q. Did the Co-ordination Committee for the Protection of
20 Muslims receive any advice or direction from the
21 republic level or any elected leaders on the republic
22 level?
23 A. No, we issued statements asking them what to do, because
24 we had a lot of problems, and that is why we addressed
25 not only the public at home but also the international
1 public, international humanitarian organisations, the
2 UNPROFOR, the UNHCR and that is what these statements
3 were aimed at. We directly addressed everyone, you
4 know, through these statements. We did not have any
5 instructions from republican authorities, but at that
6 level we wanted to have problems that had accumulated
7 resolved, because there were more and more such problems
8 in the organisation.
9 Q. When you collected your information about the various
10 aspects of life for Muslims in the Vitez community,
11 would you present those problems to the HVO government
12 and try to seek a solution?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Tell me how that worked?
15 A. Just to give an example, temporarily I was director of
16 the Dom Zdravlja in Vitez because my predecessor had
17 left this, Dr. Dzevald Balta. He did this by way of
18 demonstration because he said he had no conditions to
19 work properly. In the Dom Zdravlja, it is the worker's
20 council who appoint the director. I was asked to take
21 over this post before a new director was elected.
22 I used an official car.
23 One day, the military police of the HVO simply
24 came and said, "Hello doctor", and I said hello. "We
25 have been ordered to take away the keys of your car."
1 That is an example. Dr. Muhamed Mujezinovic, the acting
2 director of the Dom Zdravlja in Vitez, had his car keys
3 to his official car taken over from the HVO military
4 police, so that is the kind of statement we issued and
5 that is an example of that kind of statement. Should
6 I give you more examples?
7 For instance, a doctor of veterinary medicine in
8 Vitez, who had been working there for 25 or 30 years, an
9 elderly gentleman with three bypass operations carried
10 out on him, he went to work in a village in the vicinity
11 of Vitez; he was beaten up by HVO soldiers. I examined
12 him afterwards and we addressed the public through
13 radio, television -- Travnik television, the joint
14 television, the Sarajevo television -- and we said that
15 a doctor, a veterinarian was beaten up by an HVO soldier
16 in such and such a village near Vitez.
17 Q. Did you bring that to the attention of the HVO leaders
18 in the Vitez community directly?
19 A. Yes. Invariably, they would respond that it was
20 informal, armed groups that did this and that they had
21 no authority, no command over them.
22 Q. Was the Co-ordination Committee for the Protection of
23 Muslims a group that was attempting to create conflict
24 in the Vitez municipality or trying to create harmony in
25 the community?
1 A. The Co-ordination Committee for Protecting Muslims truly
2 tried to create a harmonious life in Vitez. At one of
3 the meetings of the Co-ordinating Committee, the
4 representative -- the President of the Co-ordinating
5 Committee or the Prime Minister, he presented the view
6 of Mr. Alija Izetbegovic, that in Vitez we had to iron
7 out our differences with the Croats, that we should not
8 allow a conflict to happen; that in Vitez and in the
9 other municipalities, we can only use force if the
10 physical integrity of people is harmed. It is in that
11 direction that we worked. I personally had a lot of
12 problems with armed Muslims and armed Croats as I did my
13 job.
14 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, after 18th June 1992, did life become
15 more difficult for Muslims in the Vitez community?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Can you explain?
18 A. The new government introduced a new organisational
19 pattern for the municipality. All the workers who were
20 employed as staff working in the municipality, they had
21 to sign a statement of allegiance to the new
22 government. Whoever did not sign that on 25th November
23 1992, I think, lost their jobs. We thought that this
24 would extend to work organisations too, to education,
25 health institutions et cetera. The new government
1 introduced new taxes as well. Actually, they took over
2 all the financial resources that belonged to the
3 municipal budget.
4 Just one example: an entrepreneur, a businessman,
5 had to deliver some wooden planks to a business partner
6 in Split, and he asked the HVO to give him a pass and
7 they would not give him one. I went to see Mr. Anto
8 Valenta with Mr. Djidic, who was a teacher in the high
9 school in Vitez; they had worked together.
10 After a three-hour conversation, Anto Valenta told
11 us, "There is no problem for this person to take these
12 wooden planks to Split, but you have to accept the new
13 organisational pattern of the HVO authority in Vitez,
14 HVO government, otherwise he will not be issued a pass",
15 and we could not get this pass for him so that he could
16 do his business. Kislajmovic is the name of this
17 person, a prominent businessman who has a private firm
18 of his own in Vitez, but this was valid for all others.
19 If they did not have passes to get through HVO
20 checkpoints, they could not get through and Central
21 Bosnia had only one road that led to the rest of the
22 world. That road went through Novi Travnik, Busovaca to
23 Dalmatia; that is to say that everything else was
24 blocked.
25 Q. Were there increasing problems at HVO checkpoints for
1 Muslims?
2 A. I saw with my own eyes, when individual soldiers of the
3 HVO, because there was a civilian police of the HVO and
4 there were members of the HVO army, not two or three of
5 them only but a group of 15 or 20 people. They had
6 machine guns, they were well armed. I saw them take
7 cigarettes from a woman who would be carrying, say, two
8 packs of cigarettes; they would take one pack and leave
9 her one. At these checkpoints there was general robbery
10 of money, and people were beaten up and their cars were
11 taken away from them; private cars and vehicles carrying
12 goods.
13 We, the Co-ordinating Committee for Protecting the
14 Interests of Muslims in Vitez, we always made our views
15 public on such matters when we would find out about
16 these things. At the checkpoints it is not only the
17 people of Vitez who were robbed but also people who were
18 passers-by, people who were going from Tesanj Doboj,
19 Sarajevo. We were asked by them to help them get back
20 their goods or their weapons or whatever from the HVO
21 authorities. Sometimes we would succeed in doing so but
22 not always, and as time went by it became increasingly
23 difficult to get these goods back. I do not know if
24 ever any such person was held accountable by the HVO
25 government, either the civilian or the military
1 authorities.
2 Q. That is after you made complaints to the HVO government
3 about what had occurred at the checkpoints?
4 A. To tell you quite frankly, I had the impression that
5 they were fooling around with us. I will tell you a
6 story. When my own car was taken away, my children came
7 in from the street to say that HVO soldiers had taken
8 away my own car. As a citizen of Vitez, I first went to
9 the HVO civilian police to report this. Then I went to
10 the military police and then they started laughing and
11 saying, "Look at this fool! Is he crazy or is he a
12 fool?" Then I went to the police of the BH-Army and
13 they registered it to the other civilian police. After
14 seven days Croat and HVO soldier came to me and told me
15 who took my car away. He promised he would get my car
16 back for me. It never happened. I can tell you here
17 the name and surname for example, Peko Garic, an HVO
18 soldier who enjoys a good reputation in Vitez, and his
19 family too. He told me that a group of HVO soldiers
20 from the village of Ovlat took my car away and that he
21 would personally make an effort to have my car returned
22 to me. I did not get it back. There were many such
23 cases in Vitez.
24 Q. After 18th June 1992, what happened to Muslim-owned
25 businesses and shops in the city of Vitez?
1 A. Some time in October, there was a conflict in
2 Novi Travnik. In Vitez, the situation became
3 increasingly complicated. I was the doctor on duty in
4 the general hospital in Travnik the weekend of the
5 17th and 18th, and on the morning of the 19th the
6 wounded from Novi Travnik were brought in. I came to
7 Vitez to do part of my job, and I went to my home.
8 In the morning, when I was leaving for work, in
9 front of my house, Omeric Anto, a Croat, my neighbour,
10 he said, "Doctor, do not take your car, the HVO soldiers
11 will take it away from you." I asked why. He said
12 there was a conflict in the village of Ahmici.
13 I went to work, and as acting doctor of the Dom
14 Zdrvalja, I was told that the HVO army, Mario Cerkez and
15 the BH-Army did not agree on military problems and that
16 they were expecting a conflict. We moved to the reserve
17 location of the Dom Zdrvalja and we were waiting. That
18 day in Vitez, we saw four or five wounded Muslims from
19 Kolonija who came in for treatment, and Bruno Buzul, my
20 colleague, who was my deputy in the Dom Zdravlja, kept
21 warning the medical staffs, "No, do not go out", because
22 Muslim snipers were shooting from roofs, and we kept
23 receiving wounded civilians, Muslims, in the Dom
24 Zdrvalja.
25 When this stopped, some time after that, there was
1 massive destruction of facilities in Vitez, and people
2 were beaten up. One of these people came to me for
3 treatment and examination; Ibrahim Hodzic is his name,
4 I did not know who had destroyed his cafe but he came
5 beaten up. A neighbour of his, a Croat, Ruzic Stipo
6 brought him in, and he just said HVO soldiers came.
7 They broke up his cafe, they beat him up and they threw
8 him out.
9 After that, in Vitez -- it is a small town, you
10 know -- I saw that many cafes were destroyed. When
11 I asked how many, the public security service, or rather
12 the police, told us that during a day or two about ten
13 such establishments were destroyed, those that were
14 owned by Muslims in Vitez.
15 We intervened, and the question was always put,
16 time and again, but formulated in a different way, the
17 conditions on which the situation would become calmer in
18 Vitez, putting the army units under HVO command, the
19 civilian authorities, the civilian police too. In that
20 period, as far as I can remember at one of the meetings
21 they even showed that, in order for the situation to
22 calm down in Vitez, the Deputy Commander of the
23 operative zone of Central Bosnia, Mr. Tihofil Blaskic
24 would guarantee this, but the conditions were the same
25 for the situation to calm down after that. I am talking
1 about the month of October, and the beginning of the
2 month of November.
3 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, would you approach Prosecutor's exhibit
4 45B, which is the large photograph on the easel? With a
5 yellow pen, would you please put a circle around the
6 apartment building where you lived? Would you put a
7 circle with the yellow pen around that building, please,
8 Dr. Mujezinovic? That building represents your apartment
9 building; is that correct?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. You can take a seat again for a moment, Dr. Mujezinovic.
12 From your apartment building, did you see any shops
13 destroyed?
14 A. At that time, in October, no.
15 Q. I am talking about any time after 18th June 1992.
16 A. Yes, in the later period.
17 Q. Would you explain to the court what you saw?
18 A. One evening, some time around 1.00 or 2.00, we heard
19 detonations. My wife and I and my father and
20 mother-in-law were staying with us and we got up to see
21 what was happening. A group of soldiers -- I think this
22 was 20th January -- was simply throwing grenades in the
23 street and breaking windows, shop windows, with their
24 rifles. I can show it to you if you want.
25 Q. Will you please take the red pen that is in front of
1 you, Dr. Mujezinovic, and will you mark on Prosecutor's
2 exhibit 45B the location of those buildings that you saw
3 being damaged or destroyed.
4 A. Here, these buildings (indicates) and also here, this is
5 where the town pharmacy was, and they continued along
6 this street later, and then here they destroyed a
7 building too, this same group.
8 Q. Was there a butcher's shop that was destroyed as well?
9 A. Not at the same time, you know. This was during the
10 night, around 2.00.
11 Q. Why do we not stay with this particular set of
12 observations?
13 A. And the butcher's shop was in this building, which was
14 destroyed, I do not know, about a day earlier, but in
15 the afternoon, and we watched this from our window.
16 Q. Why do we not take the first series of observations that
17 you made, Dr. Mujezinovic. You said you saw soldiers
18 throwing grenades into buildings; is that correct?
19 A. I could hear detonations, I could not see them, it was
20 dark, until they came in front of my building. Then we
21 saw them and they woke up all the tenants.
22 Q. The following day, did you go out on the street and
23 observe any damage that had not been there the day
24 before?
25 A. One evening, in the second half of January, about 10.00,
1 a terrible detonation was heard in the morning. In the
2 morning, I saw that here, the commercial bank of Travnik
3 was destroyed (indicates). In the evening, some time
4 around 10.00. Simply all the windows were shattered,
5 there was a terrible detonation, and all the glass on
6 the windows was broken and also on the neighbouring
7 building.
8 Q. What was the significance, Dr. Mujezinovic, of that
9 particular bank?
10 A. The commercial bank of Travnik at that time used the
11 official currency in use in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, as
12 far as I can remember, we had already started to receive
13 coupons or Croatian dinars as our salaries, because
14 I was still working. This bank was still operating with
15 the dinar of the former Yugoslavia or the previous
16 Yugoslavia, whichever.
17 Q. Was that the only bank in Vitez that was dealing with
18 the Bosnian or Yugoslavian dinar?
19 A. It was the only bank in Vitez with the exception of the
20 Zagreb bank which was opened very close to it, but
21 I think it never actually started operating, at that
22 time at least.
23 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, you mentioned that you observed a
24 butcher's shop being destroyed. Can you explain to the
25 court what time of the day that occurred and where the
1 butcher's shop was located.
2 A. The butcher's shop was owned by the work organisation
3 Zmajevac from Zenica. This was a state-owned
4 enterprise. It was across the way from my apartment
5 building, and around 5.00 in the afternoon, I had come
6 home from work, my neighbour called us in to our bedroom
7 and the children's room to see how the butcher's shop
8 was being broken up by a group of HVO soldiers. My
9 neighbour recognised another neighbour of ours whom we
10 called Gulag; his name is Crnic Drago, who with a group
11 of soldiers was simply breaking up the windows and
12 carrying out everything he found inside, the choppers,
13 the knives, the refrigerators.
14 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, by the time of the start of the conflict
15 in April 1993, how many Muslim-owned businesses and
16 shops were intact in Vitez; that is the parts of Vitez
17 controlled by the HVO?
18 A. As far as I know, there was one cafe left owned by Hamo
19 Selimic, I think that was his name, which was intact.
20 That owner was looted; his cafe was one of the better
21 ones. It was not destroyed, but we were told by the SUP
22 that the owner of that cafe, Hamo Selimic, I think, that
23 his cafe is the only private shop that remained intact
24 in the urban part of Vitez, downtown Vitez.
25 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, did most of the destruction of these
1 shops take place by grenades, by bombs?
2 A. With the formation of the HVO government, since it was
3 our task to try and calm the situation, that part of
4 Vitez was under the absolute control of the HVO, both
5 the civilian and the military police, and when we asked
6 the HVO government or the civilian police that we carry
7 out an investigation on the spot together, this was not
8 allowed. The police were not allowed, the police of the
9 Bosniaks, which was under the control of the republic's
10 MUP, could not carry out an investigation. For example
11 when the bank was blown up, when the Krivaja premises
12 were blown up, there was an accident when a young boy
13 lost his life, but an investigation was never
14 permitted. That was how we were informed by Saban
15 Mahmutovic and Salem Topcic whose responsibility this
16 was. One of them was Chief of Police and the other one
17 was Chief of the Criminal Police.
18 Q. In your opinion, Dr. Mujezinovic, could the detonations
19 that caused the damage to those Muslim shops that you
20 have described be heard from the hotel Vitez?
21 A. Yes, the hotel Vitez is maybe 300 metres away. I do not
22 know whether it was even that far. It is very close to
23 that spot. I do not know exactly, but it is not far.
24 Those detonations could be heard throughout Vitez.
25 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, was life also difficult for Bosnian
1 Croats who did not agree with the policies of the HVO?
2 A. Yes, many of them complained, you see. I personally saw
3 Croats who had been beaten up by the HVO. One day I was
4 sitting in the SDA office with my associates, and the
5 President of SDP, Neveka Rajic, and her secretary Suada
6 Akeric, ran in asking us to help. When we went out, HVO
7 soldiers were beating with rifles two Croats who were
8 members of the SDP. One was called Stipo Brkan and the
9 other one Mijo Ivanic. I examined those people. After
10 they were treated Stipo Brkan did not behave normally in
11 the street any more, and the others too had problems.
12 The going story was: who was not in favour was against,
13 and he would get what is coming to him and that meant he
14 would be beaten.
15 Q. Did you see a third member of the SDP party who had also
16 been beaten?
17 A. Zdravko Livancic came to me to be examined. He had been
18 beaten up. I asked him, because I knew the man well,
19 "So what happened? Tell me." He was a first class
20 captain in reserve. He used to work in the TO staff; he
21 was a well-built young man and not stupid at all. "How
22 did you get these?", I asked, and he told me he had been
23 beaten up by the HVO soldiers.
24 Q. Did he tell you why he had been beaten up by the HVO
25 soldiers?
1 A. No, he just said that he had openly criticised the HVO
2 policies. I think that he was beaten several times on
3 that account. I think he was even imprisoned, but I am
4 not sure about that, but he did come to me for an
5 examination when he had been very badly beaten.
6 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, how long did the Committee for the
7 Protection of Muslims exist and when did it cease to
8 exist?
9 A. Towards the end of 1992, a decree was passed by the
10 Presidency of the republic that districts should be
11 formed, and within that framework -- the War
12 Presidencies -- and since we had initiated on a number
13 of occasions meetings with HVO representatives, and made
14 our proposals as to how the bodies of authority should
15 be formed in the Vitez municipality. One of the
16 proposals came from a Croat, Josip Silica, who had a
17 good reputation in town, that this should be called the
18 Croat/Muslim Defence Council. This was accepted by
19 everyone at the time, and three or four days later Fuad
20 Kaknjo, the President of the government, and Munir
21 Kajminovic, the President of the SDA party, informed us
22 that nothing would come of those decisions because the
23 HVO government had not received approval from Grude.
24 There was another occasion when we agreed to form
25 a wartime government of Vitez. The main problem was the
1 preamble, how we would call it. We in Vitez did not
2 want it to be a single nation government, and to be
3 coloured ethnically and, since we did not succeed, an
4 initiative was launched that a War Presidency be formed
5 of Vitez.
6 Q. When was it created?
7 A. It was created on 15th January.
8 Q. Who were its members?
9 A. On 15th January 1993, the members of the War Presidency
10 were representatives of all the Parliamentary parties,
11 as well as the Commander of the Civil Defence, a
12 representative of the army and at that meeting, no one
13 accepted -- I was not a Member of Parliament, but no one
14 accepted to be President of the War Presidency. I was
15 proposed, but I too did not accept. They tried to
16 persuade me, saying that I had to accept, that I have
17 very good relations in Vitez with everyone and that is
18 true; that I would succeed in appeasing the situation
19 and that we would avoid conflicts in Vitez. I accepted
20 that on 2nd February 1993, even though I was warned by
21 the Croats, some Croats who used to be close to me, that
22 this was stupid, and that I would get killed as
23 a result.
24 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, just to clarify your testimony, were
25 Croats participants in the War Presidency?
1 A. No.
2 Q. How long did the War Presidency remain in existence?
3 A. The War Presidency was active until October 1994.
4 Q. What was the legal basis for forming the War Presidency?
5 A. The decree of the Presidency of the Republic.
6 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, was the War Presidency a parallel form
7 of government, parallel to the HVO?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Would you explain what authorities, what powers it
10 exercised?
11 A. It had again the right to issue orders, conclusions,
12 instructions, which applied to the army, the police and
13 the civilian organs of authority.
14 Q. Did it have the equivalent of ministers, for example
15 somebody who controlled the health portfolio, somebody
16 who controlled the education portfolio, the defence
17 portfolio?
18 A. No, it was a smaller body, but we also had a wartime
19 government which had these portfolios. The War
20 Presidency is a smaller body, and its orders,
21 conclusions and decisions were implemented by the
22 government and the appropriate ministers, so to speak.
23 Q. Could the War Presidency issue orders to the military?
24 A. Yes, to a part of the army. Its competencies included
25 -- for instance in Vitez a brigade was formed at the
1 end of 1992 from the soldiers in Vitez, but its main
2 command in the military structure was in Zenica, the
3 Third Corps there, so we had a defence staff of Vitez,
4 and they had a command in the district staff in Zenica.
5 My authority and that of the War Presidency was to
6 propose who would be the Commander, and the Commander
7 had the right to appoint his own members of his staff,
8 and all our orders -- for all our orders they had to
9 consult the higher level command, and we had authority
10 over the police.
11 JUDGE JORDA: I apologise, Mr. Prosecutor. Could you please
12 ask the witness to repeat -- I apologise to the witness
13 too -- his answer to your last question.
14 MR. HARMON: Dr. Mujezinovic, I asked you whether the War
15 Presidency could issue orders to the military. Could
16 you again answer that question?
17 A. Yes, but they had to get approval from their own
18 military command, which was based in Zenica, that is the
19 Third Corps there.
20 Q. In other words, if the War Presidency issued an order to
21 the military, it still had to be approved by the Third
22 Corps in Zenica; is that what you are saying?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Would the members of the War Presidency, including
25 yourself, meet with members of the HVO government?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Why did you meet with the HVO government?
3 A. We continued to work on the establishment of joint
4 bodies of authority.
5 Q. How often would you meet with the representatives of the
6 HVO government?
7 A. As a doctor, I was very frequently, almost daily, in
8 contact with Ivan Santic, Pero Skopljak, Valenta,
9 Marijan Skopljak and the others, you see. When I took
10 over as President of the War Presidency, at that time,
11 there were conflicts going on in Busovaca. Vitez was
12 under blockade at the end of January, so we agreed with
13 HVO representatives that we would respect all the
14 decisions of -- observe all the decisions taken at a
15 higher level, and in that sense, through the mediation
16 of international organisations, UNHCR, UNPROFOR, the
17 European monitoring mission attached to the UN, a
18 meeting was scheduled between the Commander of the
19 operative zone of Central Bosnia and the Commander of
20 the Third Corps.
21 We agreed that whatever agreements were reached
22 would be observed, and a joint order was issued, I think
23 it was about the 15th February. A commission was formed
24 but it was all nicely written, you see. Then there
25 would be a lull for ten or fifteen days, and then it
1 would start again as before.
2 Q. When you say "it would start again", what is "it"?
3 A. I am referring to the incidents, mistreatment, looting,
4 confiscations, breaking into people's houses, physical
5 beatings, robbing of money, arresting of prominent
6 Muslims, intimidation, blowing up private houses in
7 town, burning of houses, killings of wealthy people,
8 businessmen. One of the richest Muslims in Vitez was
9 killed in front of his house and his house robbed;
10 another one on the way out of Vitez. They called me to
11 do the investigation, and my colleague, who was a Croat
12 who would come to Vitez occasionally from Zenica to work
13 there -- when he returned from the investigation, he
14 told me that what he saw was terrible. A person was
15 killed and then a grenade was thrown in that tore apart
16 his body and his house, so there was nothing for me to
17 see, he said, but bits of his body strewn around. That
18 is what I am referring to.
19 For example, in Vitez, we had a very good
20 electrical engineer who is an honorary citizen of the
21 city of Zagreb. He was a winner at the quiz on
22 television; at night a group of HVO soldiers broke in.
23 The man had three little girls. They beat him up, they
24 looted him, they said, "You have lots of money because
25 you won that award in Zagreb, that prize."
1 Another case, a doctor of technology, the leading
2 engineer in the manufacture of explosives and gunpowder
3 -- in daytime a group of HVO soldiers with stockings
4 over their heads took him out of his house, in front of
5 his children, then they brought him back beaten up, and
6 then in the middle of the night people would break in
7 and beat up people and threaten them.
8 Q. Did the HVO ever resolve those problems to the
9 satisfaction of the Muslims?
10 A. No, I do not recall. You see, at the time, my
11 impression was that this was being further fanned.
12 There were written documents promising safety, but the
13 basic precondition was that a joint authority had to be
14 formed under the control of the Croatian Community of
15 Herceg-Bosna, a joint military command under the command
16 of the HVO, a joint police, according to the decrees of
17 the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, and at all the
18 talks we had this was the starting point and this was
19 the conclusion. But the promise was that things would
20 calm down, these lootings, mistreatments of Muslims,
21 prominent Muslims, would stop, as well as the
22 devastation of private homes, private businesses, the
23 eviction of refugees.
24 We did not choose who would come. I had 17
25 refugees from eastern Bosnia in my own apartment. I did
1 not invite them there, they came. The comments made on
2 local HVO television by Ante Marijanovic -- he made
3 comments saying that the Muslims in Vitez were pursuing
4 a sly policy, that they were settling people in Central
5 Bosnia so as to win over power at the next elections.
6 That is why those people had to be expelled from Vitez
7 so as not to change the population structure, and each
8 refugee had to have a Red Cross card to register and to
9 receive humanitarian aid. I can tell you of an example.
10 I think it was 12th or 13th April in 1993. I said
11 that I was Vice-President of the charitable society
12 Merhamet for Vitez. Representatives of the
13 International Red Cross came to see us and ask us why
14 400 refugees had left Vitez in three days, and this was
15 happening on a daily basis. People were being robbed.
16 They were asking why these refugees were fleeing Vitez.
17 I do not know.
18 Q. I have one additional question before the break, your
19 Honour.
20 You mentioned the name Ante Marijanovic. Who is
21 Ante Marijanovic?
22 A. Ante Marijanovic at that time was editor on the local HV
23 television; I think he was one of the editors at that
24 time.
25 MR. HARMON: Thank you very much, your Honour. I have no
1 additional questions at the moment. I will continue
2 after the lunch break.
3 JUDGE JORDA: We will resume at 2.30.
4 (1.00 pm)
5 (Adjourned until 2.30 pm)
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
1 (2.30 pm)
2 JUDGE JORDA: The hearing is resumed; please be seated.
3 Bring in the accused, please.
4 (Accused brought in)
5 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Prosecutor, we are continuing with your
6 interrogation.
7 MR. HARMON: Thank you, Mr. President.
8 May I start with having Mr. Dubuisson take exhibit
9 80, and I would ask the usher to put two of those
10 photographs on the ELMO. Mr. Dubuisson, if you could
11 take Z2/456, please, and place that photograph on the
12 ELMO.
13 Dr. Mujezinovic, to your right there is a
14 photograph on the ELMO machine. Could you take a look
15 at that photograph. Can you identify any of the people
16 in that photograph? If you can, would you take your
17 pointer and put your pointer on the figure or figures
18 who you recognise. You have to point on the machine
19 over here.
20 A. This is Ignjac Kostroman, secretary-general of the
21 Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna.
22 Q. Hold your pointer on each individual for just a couple
23 of seconds.
24 A. This is Ignjac Kostroman from Vares, the
25 secretary-general of the Croatian Democratic Community.
1 Q. Okay.
2 A. This is Dario Kordic.
3 JUDGE JORDA: Excuse me, can we hear the name well, please?
4 The translation is having some difficulty, so could the
5 name be stated very clearly, please?
6 A. Kostroman Ignjac, secretary-general of the Croatian
7 Community of Herceg-Bosna. As far as I know, he is from
8 Vares, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
9 MR. HARMON: Please proceed.
10 A. Dario Kordic, Deputy President of the Croatian Community
11 of Herceg-Bosna. Dario Kordic, Deputy President of the
12 Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna. A Colonel,
13 according to his military rank.
14 Q. Could you move to the figure you can identify?
15 A. This is Anto Valenta, the first President of the
16 Croatian Democratic Community for Vitez, and later the
17 Deputy President of the Croatian Community of
18 Herceg-Bosna, born in Dolac near Travnik. For quite
19 some time he lived and worked in Vitez, about 30 years.
20 Q. If the usher could move to the next photograph which is
21 Z2/457, and place that on the ELMO.
22 Please proceed, Dr. Mujezinovic, and identify the
23 figures you identify in that particular photograph.
24 A. This is Anto Valenta, with a degree in technology. He
25 worked in Vitez in the high school, a teacher, the first
1 President of the Croatian Democratic Community for Vitez
2 and later the Vice-President of the Croatian Community
3 of Herceg-Bosna.
4 This is Mr. Pero Skopljak, holds a Master's degree
5 in theology. He worked in Vitez for some time as a
6 priest. He came back to Vitez in the 1990s. I did not
7 know him while he worked as a priest, but I knew his
8 family, his brothers and the rest of the Skopljak
9 family. He was the head of the police, MUP, in Vitez in
10 the first half of 1991 and the first half of 1992.
11 Q. For the record, your Honour, Dr. Mujezinovic is pointing
12 to a man who is in the centre of that photograph and is
13 wearing what appears to be a gold-coloured,
14 short-sleeved shirt.
15 Could you move on and identify the next person you
16 can identify in that photograph?
17 I think we have to have this photograph refocused
18 to get a bigger view.
19 A. This is Ivan Santic. In Vitez, they called him Ivica,
20 an engineer of technology in Vitez, very well known as
21 an active sportsman. He established the pingpong club,
22 table-tennis club, in Vitez. He was very popular, well
23 liked in Vitez. In Vitez, he was elected President of
24 the Municipal Parliament of the Municipal Assembly, Ivan
25 Santic or Ivica Santic.
1 MR. HARMON: For the record, your Honour, in photograph 457
2 Dr. Mujezinovic has been pointing to the individual in a
3 blue, short sleeved, T-shirt on the right side of that
4 photograph.
5 Thank you Dr. Mujezinovic.
6 Claudius, I am finished with those photographs.
7 The exhibit can be reassembled.
8 Dr. Mujezinovic, while you were a member of the War
9 Presidency and while you were meeting with members of
10 the HDZ who you have identified in these particular
11 photographs, did you continue, you as a representative
12 of the Muslim people, to receive threats from those
13 particular representatives of the HVO?
14 A. Yes, at official meetings.
15 Q. Can you describe those threats?
16 A. On several occasions, Anto Valenta, the Vice-President
17 of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, threatened
18 that Vitez was within the Croatian Community of
19 Herceg-Bosna and that they, I mean the Croats, this is
20 their historical territory, and that they would do that
21 by force or by resorting to any other means. He said
22 that they had with them the HVO, 50,000 armed soldiers,
23 and Croatia on their side, and privately, when we would
24 meet, he would always say that we should accept the
25 proposal of the HDZ in Vitez, namely to accept the HVO
1 government in Vitez.
2 Pero Skopljak also on several occasions said that
3 the decisions of the HVO government in Vitez had to be
4 carried out, otherwise we would fight, as he would point
5 out, Ivan Santic, only in the second half of 1992, at
6 one meeting, said, "Regardless of whether you accept
7 this or not, in Vitez it is the stronger that will
8 rule."
9 Once in April 1993, Santic invited me to his home
10 and he said that his wife was ill. I went there with my
11 wife to his apartment in Vitez, which was not far away
12 from my apartment. Privately, I asked him to use his
13 influence, because what could a normal person expect
14 after everything; there would be chaos in Vitez. On
15 that occasion Ivan Santic told me and my wife, "I wish
16 I had that kind of influence to prevent that. I am
17 powerless." That is about it.
18 Q. Okay. Anto Valenta, did you ever see him wearing an HVO
19 uniform?
20 A. Anto Valenta was most often in HVO uniform. I hardly
21 ever saw him in civilian clothes, as opposed to Santic
22 who always wore civilian clothes. I never saw Santic
23 wear a HVO uniform. Pero Skopljak I would see in
24 camouflage uniform while he was head of MUP, the police,
25 but he often wore civilian clothes too.
1 Q. In conversation with the HDZ representatives you have
2 identified, did they ever make comments or remarks about
3 receiving orders from Grude or Zagreb?
4 A. Yes. On one occasion, Ivan Santic, when he proposed to
5 establish a War Government of the municipality of Vitez,
6 he proposed that we sent to Sarajevo documents saying
7 "Republika Bosnia-Herzegovina, War Government of the
8 municipality of Vitez to Sarajevo and to Grude to send
9 documents Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatian
10 Community of Herceg-Bosna, the War Government of the
11 municipality of Vitez. Of course, this was not carried
12 through, you know. We had agreed to one such variant.
13 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, I would like to turn to another topic
14 now and that is refugees who came into Vitez
15 municipality prior to April 16th . Can you explain to
16 the court the situation in respect of refugees in your
17 community, prior to the start of the conflict on April
18 16th?
19 A. Many refugees came to Vitez. As I said, the urban area
20 of Vitez did not have more than 5,500 inhabitants while
21 the municipality had a population of 28,000. The first
22 refugees that came to Vitez came in from Croatia, Foca,
23 Sid and Ilok. They were of Croat nationality; they were
24 registered with the municipal Red Cross. They mostly
25 came to stay with families and family homes.
1 The second wave of refugees came from eastern
2 Bosnia and western Bosnia, from the areas of Foca,
3 Tjentiste, Rogatica and the western part of Bosnia.
4 They came from Sanski Most, Sana, Zenica, Kljuc.
5 We registered these people with the Red Cross, and
6 through the humanitarian organisations, Caritas and
7 Merhamet, they received food, clothing, footwear,
8 medicine, and we sought shelter for them. We sent them
9 to families which would take them in voluntarily, and we
10 asked people from Zenica, Vitez, Travnik, who had
11 weekend houses, as we call them -- we asked them to have
12 these people stay in their weekend houses. At any rate,
13 there was a major wave of refugees that came in from
14 Jajce, Croats and Muslims some time in November,
15 I think.
16 Anto Valenta talked to them at the stadium. I do
17 not know how many of them there were, about 7,000 of
18 Croat nationality, but there were also some Muslims
19 among them. There were difficulties in the registration
20 of refugees came about when the HVO government in Vitez
21 simply prohibited the President of the Red Cross, Sead
22 Cajnic and his secretary to enter the premises. They
23 took their keys, their seals, and the HVO government of
24 Vitez appointed Stipo Krizanac President of the
25 Red Cross of Vitez. Keys and seals were taken away from
1 Sead Cajnic. Thanks to Stipo Krizanac, because as he
2 told us, it was no longer allowed to register Muslim
3 refugees, but he continued doing so, although not for
4 all who came in.
5 The largest number of refugees we had registered
6 was about 4,200 or 4,500, I cannot remember exactly any
7 more, but I mentioned already April, March, the people
8 were leaving Vitez then, even in January, because they
9 were feeling less and less secure in Vitez, because of
10 provocations, beatings and looting and robbery by HVO
11 soldiers who came from I do not know where. They were
12 not from Vitez.
13 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, I would like to turn your attention to
14 the conflict in April 1993. I would like to focus your
15 attention on April 15th, the day before the conflict,
16 and ask you first off, did you go to work that day?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Did you perform the normal duties at the health centre?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Could you tell me what happened on 15th April while you
21 were at work?
22 A. Some of the patients that I had been following for a
23 long time were surprised to see me working, and they
24 asked me, "Doctor, the situation is no good. You should
25 leave Vitez." Nobody told me why the situation was no
1 good. I asked for a meeting of the War Presidency, and
2 I asked for a report from the Commission to which we had
3 sent a report.
4 Q. Let me interrupt you for just a minute. Those patients
5 who you were just mentioning, were those Muslim patients
6 or Croat patients?
7 A. Croats.
8 Q. What time did you finish your work in the health centre
9 on 15th April?
10 A. About 1.00 pm I left the health centre Dom Zdravlja.
11 Q. Based on your conversations with these Croat patients,
12 what did you do?
13 A. I went to the offices of the War Presidency.
14 I requested an urgent meeting of the War Presidency and
15 of the Commission for Incidents in Vitez. There were
16 three Bosniak representatives and three Croat
17 representatives respectively on this Commission. The
18 members of the War Presidency came to the meeting,
19 together with the Commission which had a meeting with
20 this same kind of commission on the Croat side in the
21 building of the Municipal Assembly. They showed me the
22 minutes from that meeting.
23 Q. Who was President at that meeting, Dr. Mujezinovic?
24 A. I was there, Kaknjo, Munib Kajmovic, Suad Salkic,
25 Sefkija Djidic, Nijaz Sidro and Sifet Sivro, Fuad Zeco.
1 Q. Was there anybody there from the HVO?
2 A. No.
3 Q. You mentioned a commission. What was the Commission?
4 A. Earlier on, following the orders of the Commander of the
5 operational zone of Central Bosnia, Mr. Tihomir Blaskic,
6 and the Commander of the Third Corps of the BH-Army,
7 Enver Hadzihasanovic, at the initiative of international
8 organisations, UNHCR, UNPROFOR, European observers, the
9 United Nations, three commissions were established,
10 three joint commissions which were supposed to work on
11 the ground in order to have the situation calm down.
12 This first commission on the Bosniak side consisted of
13 Sefkija Djidic, Nijaz Sidro and Saban Mahmutovic.
14 I think on the Croat side it was Marijan Skopljak,
15 Samija Mirko, and I do not know who the third person
16 was. They presented their views. This commission
17 presented their views at the War Presidency. They said
18 again there were a lot of incidents and that looting
19 continued at checkpoints, the people were disarmed,
20 their cars were taken, the situation was deteriorating
21 in Vitez. They asked for an urgent meeting with
22 appropriate representatives from the Croat side, and
23 Ivan Santic, Pero Skopljak, Anto Valenta and the
24 Commander of the HVO of Vitez.
25 We agreed to this meeting and the meeting was
1 scheduled for 16th April at 12.00, and we also suggested
2 that these minutes be sent to hotel Tisa in Busovaca
3 where a joint commission was operating of the HVO and
4 the BH-Army, under the control of European monitors and
5 the United Nations. We concluded our meeting around
6 3.00 pm.
7 Q. At the conclusion of that meeting, had you been
8 reassured that nothing was going to happen on 16th April
9 1993?
10 A. I forgot to mention that Midhat Varupa was also there
11 and he was given the assignment as a lawyer to call up
12 his colleague Dragan Rados and to tell him we had agreed
13 to the meeting and that we had scheduled it for 12.00 on
14 16th April, so as to see what the problems were, where
15 we could intervene and try to quieten down the
16 situation.
17 Q. After the meeting, Dr. Mujezinovic, where did you go?
18 A. As I did not have my own car, a car of my own, so
19 I headed home on foot, and in front of my house, Zvonko
20 Bekavac was waiting for me. He was one of the members
21 of the HVO government in Vitez, as he said, and he asked
22 me to examine his mother who was sick in the settlement
23 or district called Rijeka in Vitez. I did not go in.
24 I got into his car, a Fiat. I knew his mother well and
25 I had been following her health as a doctor for years.
1 We completed the examination, I issued some medicaments
2 to Zvonko for his mother from the Merhamet supplies as
3 I had the keys on me. After that Vinko Kolak from the
4 village of Jardol came with an elderly man carrying a
5 paper for the hospital, and an X-ray with him, and he
6 asked me to go to the health centre to examine that
7 woman. I finished that and Zvonko took me home.
8 During the night, I was with my family. Many
9 Muslims of Vitez called me up on the phone to tell them
10 what was happening, because the situation did not seem
11 normal in the streets. I kept telling everybody that we
12 had a meeting scheduled for the next day at 12.00 and
13 that there were no problems, that these were just normal
14 activities, but some people answered, "It is not
15 normal." I kept repeating to everyone that we had this
16 meeting and that they had nothing to fear.
17 Q. Then did you retire for the evening?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. What next occurred?
20 A. In the morning, about 5.30, between 5.00 and 6.00 am, we
21 were awakened by very powerful explosions. My wife and
22 children, my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, we all got
23 up. I called Sefkija Djidic and asked him, "What is it;
24 what is happening?" He answered on the phone that they
25 had been attacked by the HVO, that houses were burning
1 in Stari Vitez and that there was fighting around the
2 houses. I asked him, "What should I do?" He told me to
3 sit tight and we interrupted the conversation.
4 Just then, somebody rang the doorbell. I looked
5 to see my neighbour, Marinko Katava. We were at the
6 door, my wife and I, and when we opened the door, he
7 told us, "I had warned you that your children should not
8 chant slogans in favour of the BH-Army. You did not
9 listen. You do not exist any more. I have just come to
10 tell you so that you would not be surprised."
11 Q. Did you remain in your apartment throughout April 16th?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. What, if anything, did you observe from your apartment
14 building on 16th April?
15 A. I stayed in my apartment. There were many people who
16 called me up on the phone asking what it was all about,
17 not just from Vitez but from Zenica, from Travnik.
18 There were many provocations; people were asking where
19 was my army; why was I not defending myself? My
20 colleague's wife called me up and informed me that the
21 HVO soldiers had killed Midhat Varupa, a lawyer from
22 Vitez, that she watched it from her balcony. Other
23 people called to say that Nedim Zlotrg and his wife had
24 been killed in their apartment. Then in the middle of
25 the street a civilian policeman, a Bosniak, had been
1 stabbed to death, Salem Topcic.
2 Q. Did you see anybody being arrested or being taken out of
3 the apartment buildings near your apartment building?
4 A. No, I did not see it at all, I did not dare look. There
5 were terrible explosions and from my living-room and the
6 kitchen I could see the shells falling on the village of
7 Novaci. I sat there and waited.
8 Q. How long did you remain in your apartment building
9 before you actually left the building to go some place
10 else?
11 A. About 8.30 or 9.00, my neighbour, Marinko Katava,
12 appeared again and asked me to go into a room that was
13 empty, and he asked me -- he wanted to tell me what
14 I had done that my life had been saved. I did not
15 understand what he meant. He brought two packs of
16 cigarettes and he told me that it would all be over by
17 Monday -- Saturday, Sunday, Monday -- and that he would
18 tell me who had saved my life and that I was to tell him
19 how one should deal with people in the right way so they
20 would save them afterwards, like I was being saved.
21 After that, a friend of mine, another neighbour, a
22 Croat, an engineer, came. He was crying and he said,
23 "You are saved, just be quiet", and I asked, "Dragan,
24 what has happened to this one and that one?" He just
25 said, "You keep quiet, you have been saved."
1 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, did you remain in your apartment until
2 19th April 1993?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic --
5 A. I stayed in my apartment until Monday, about 10.00, when
6 an HVO policeman, Dragan Calic from Vitez came and told
7 me to follow him.
8 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, before we get to the 19th, I just wanted
9 to ask you some questions about your observations from
10 your apartment between 16th April and 19th April. First
11 of all, can you tell me, did you see any damage or
12 destruction from your apartment building when you looked
13 out?
14 A. I saw the shells falling in the village of Novaci. You
15 could see the explosions; they were falling around the
16 houses. The next day, I saw smoke.
17 Q. What day is that?
18 A. In Vitez, you can see from my living-room. I think it
19 was the 17th or the 18th. I think it was the 17th.
20 Q. What did you see?
21 A. I saw the smoke, I saw houses burning.
22 Q. Can you go to the map that is Prosecutor's exhibit 45B
23 and, with a red pen, please, identify the area where
24 that smoke was coming from. You have circled how many
25 areas, Dr. Mujezinovic?
1 A. I have circled to the right side of Vitez in the
2 immediate vicinity of my house. These houses were
3 burning, the Kavadovic family, then on the other side of
4 the road I could see smoke where Ahmic Dervis, Faik
5 Jadran and Mujkic Edin -- then the Koca family. Anyway,
6 this whole row of 10 or 15 houses inhabited by Muslim
7 families were burning.
8 Q. Do you know the owners and occupants of those houses,
9 Dr. Mujezinovic?
10 A. Yes. They were inhabitants of Vitez. I knew very many
11 people in Vitez. I knew them well, I knew where
12 everyone lived.
13 Q. As you said, those were Muslim houses; is that correct?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. At some point in time, while you were in your apartment
16 building, did you receive a warning of some kind?
17 A. Yes, on Sunday around 5.00, Katava Marinko warned us we
18 were not allowed to go out anywhere, because in the
19 hallway there were local people with arms. They were
20 mostly wearing civilian clothes, some of them were in
21 camouflage uniforms with rifles, and we did not move
22 anywhere. Then Marinko Katava warned me and my
23 neighbours, or rather my wife, my children, my in-laws
24 -- he did not talk much to me -- that we should not be
25 afraid, that a strong explosion would be heard.
1 Q. Was Marinko Katava a Muslim or a Croat?
2 A. He was a Croat from the village of, I think, Kacuni,
3 municipality of Busovaca, who had moved to Vitez to
4 live. He has been living there for some time with his
5 wife.
6 Q. Based on that warning, did you or your family do
7 anything in respect of your apartment?
8 A. Yes, we pulled down the windows so that the panes would
9 not be broken. We half opened them because they opened
10 this way and this way (indicates), horizontally and from
11 the top, and my father-in-law opened them in case of a
12 powerful explosion; he wanted to save the windows, so he
13 opened them all.
14 Q. Was there in fact a powerful explosion that occurred
15 shortly thereafter?
16 A. It was dusk. First there was a very powerful light and
17 then a very strong explosion. We did not know what it
18 was and then Marinko Katava said, "Do not be afraid. We
19 have hit Djuda's ammunition depot", as he put it, and
20 Dzevada Topcic, known as "Djuda", held in Stari Vitez a
21 warehouse, and he claimed that an ammunition depot in
22 Stari Vitez had been blown up and that that was the
23 explosion.
24 Q. Did you learn later on that in fact that was not the
25 explosion?
1 A. Yes, later on I learnt actually on Monday when I went to
2 work.
3 Q. What did you learn on Monday?
4 A. That a tank truck had exploded in Stari Vitez, that many
5 houses had been destroyed, that there were wounded and
6 injured among the people working in the health centre.
7 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, you said on 19th April, you left your
8 apartment. Did someone come to get you at your
9 apartment?
10 A. Yes, a military policeman of the HVO, Dragan Calic
11 came. The military police wore those white belts, and
12 my mother-in-law asked, "Where are you taking him?" He
13 said, "Do not worry." As I knew the man -- he said, "Do
14 not worry, we have a lot of wounded, I am taking you to
15 work." I took my doctor's bag and followed him.
16 Q. Where did you go?
17 A. I went to the health centre which was made for wartime
18 conditions, and I had participated in choosing the
19 location -- actually I was the main organiser behind the
20 project, the preparation of medicines, sanitary
21 material, beds, tables.
22 Q. Was the War Hospital very far from your apartment
23 building, Dr. Mujezinovic?
24 A. No, it was in the immediate vicinity, maybe 200 metres
25 away, 250.
1 Q. When you arrived at the War Hospital, did you have any
2 conversations with any of your staff?
3 A. The nurses who were there were surprised to see me
4 alive. One of them got up, Ruzica Botic. She had
5 worked with me; she kissed me and the others looked on,
6 and there were indeed many wounded people. I put on my
7 white uniform and there were some very young
8 inexperienced doctors working there. We organised first
9 aid; it mainly consisted of first aid. We carried out a
10 selection of those that had to be transported to
11 Travnik, Zenica, Split. I proposed the patients and
12 Bruno Buzuk carried out my proposals regarding the
13 selection of the wounded and their transportation.
14 Q. At some point while you were at the War Hospital,
15 Dr. Mujezinovic, did the subject of Ahmici come up?
16 A. On 21st October, in that same hospital, they brought in
17 from Ahmici -- they asked us to send an ambulance. The
18 driver of the ambulance who went to Ahmici returned
19 three times because he could not pass. I went home,
20 I was hungry, and a lady doctor, Enisa, asked that
21 I come back quick and I saw Dr. Bruno Buzuk, the lady
22 doctor, nurses and three HVO soldiers who were hitting a
23 civilian wounded man with their legs. They were kicking
24 him and they wanted to take him out and kill him in the
25 street. This was a 55-year-old man who was a
1 businessman, had his own firm, Nesib Kajmakovic. Thanks
2 to Bruno Buzuk alone, we managed to prevent that. The
3 man's left shoulder was crushed; we immobilised his arm,
4 we gave him pain killers and sent him to be treated at
5 the Orthopaedics Department in Zenica. We struggled for
6 him for about 20 minutes.
7 Q. Let me direct your attention back to April 19th , 1993.
8 Did the subject of Ahmici come up on April 19th, 1993?
9 A. Yes. I did not know until then about Ahmici. Two
10 nurses from Ahmici -- one worked with me at the hospital
11 in Travnik; her name is Ankica Tudja. I brought her to
12 the health centre in Vitez to work with me in the
13 specialist ward and another nurse who I did not know
14 from before who had not worked in the health clinic, her
15 name is Santic; she was married in Ahmici; I knew her
16 father, Mate. We know them as Japanovi, this Santic
17 family. Ankica Tudja and this other nurse asked me
18 whether I knew what had happened in Ahmici. I said that
19 I did not. They told me that about 1.00 at night HVO
20 soldiers had evacuated all the Croats from Ahmici
21 towards Lasva and that they had participated as nurses.
22 They started crying, they said to me ...
23 JUDGE JORDA: It was all the Muslims of Ahmici that were
24 chased out, I think. According to the transcript --
25 I want to make sure.
1 A. No, I said as follows: that the nurses informed me that
2 the HVO soldiers in Ahmici had all the Croats, the women
3 and children. They had pulled them out of Ahmici
4 towards Donja Lasva and that not a single Croat civilian
5 was left in Donji Ahmici. In the morning about 5.00 or
6 6.00, Ahmici was attacked and they killed whoever they
7 could: children, women, animals, cows. They told me
8 that it was a most atrocious sight, that the cows were
9 roaming around unmilked.
10 MR. HARMON: Dr. Mujezinovic, these two nurses who told you
11 this, were they Muslims or Croats?
12 A. She was a Croat.
13 Q. What was her demeanour when she was relating this story
14 to you?
15 A. They were crying; the nurses were crying.
16 Q. Some time on 19th April, did a man by the name of Darko
17 Kraljevic come into the War Hospital?
18 A. Yes, when I was brought to the hospital by the HVO
19 policemen about half a hour later, Darko Kraljevic
20 walked in with an escort of three or four soldiers. He
21 was wearing camouflage uniform and he was wearing a big
22 knife.
23 Q. Did you know Darko Kraljevic from previous contacts?
24 A. Yes, I knew the whole Kraljevic family in Vitez, his
25 father, mother, grandfather, uncles.
1 Q. What did Darko Kraljevic say and do on the 19th while he
2 was at the War Hospital?
3 A. Darko Kraljevic said hello to me; he asked me how
4 I was. He addressed the staff, and informed them that
5 I was their chief, their boss and that they had to
6 listen to me. He gave me two telephone numbers, and if
7 there was anything I needed or the members of my staff
8 that I should ask for it, and then he left the premises
9 of the health centre.
10 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, was Darko Kraljevic a member of the HVO?
11 A. Darko Kraljevic formed a unit early on in Vitez called
12 HOS. It is a unit modelled on the units in Croatia of
13 the Croatian Party of Rights.
14 Some time in June my colleagues Franjo Tibold,
15 Dr. Franjo Tibold, and Dr. Zvonko, we were sitting
16 together and having our first coffee in the morning,
17 Zvonko Kajic, and then a nurse came up and called them
18 out and a hour later they came back and told me that
19 Darko Kraljevic had had a heart attack and that I should
20 examine him.
21 Franjo Tibold told me, "Mujezin", we were
22 colleagues so we called each other by first names, "you
23 must go because his people have come. You know what
24 they are like; they will take you there by force", so
25 I went to the house where Darko Kraljevic lived.
1 I examined him, and gave him an injection for
2 detoxification due to alcohol abuse and another one for
3 relaxation. After that, he felt better, and insulted
4 the doctors. Then he came to the health centre for a
5 shot again, and then he told me that he had been
6 replaced, that he was no longer commander, that he would
7 go somewhere for a holiday, that Pero Skopljak and Anto
8 Valenta were persistently forcing him to torch Muslim
9 houses and to provoke chaos, and some 20 days later he
10 told me that he had been restored to a command position,
11 that they were no longer called HOS but Vitezovi and
12 that they were under HVO command, that his forces were
13 not very strong and that he could not resist the HVO in
14 Vitez.
15 Q. When he mentioned to you, Dr. Mujezinovic, that Anto
16 Valenta and Pero Skopljak were persistently forcing him
17 to torch Muslim houses and provoke chaos, did he mention
18 anybody else by name?
19 A. He said "and these others". He did not mention names.
20 Every day -- he would always come with his wife, you
21 know, and his escort was always in the car and we would
22 have to wait until he received his injection in his vein
23 and he would keep me for about an hour and a half in
24 front of the house; he would talk to me. Two or three
25 times his wife was also present, and he asked me what
1 I thought about things and would I leave Vitez, and he
2 said that he did not like what was happening.
3 Q. How long did you remain at the War Hospital before being
4 taken to another location?
5 A. I stayed on in Vitez in the War Hospital until 19th May
6 1993.
7 Q. While you were in the War Hospital treating patients,
8 did someone come and take you to a different location?
9 A. The situation in Vitez had quietened down. With the
10 exception of the first seven or eight days, there was no
11 fighting any more. From time to time, with the approval
12 of Dragan Petrovic, I was taken to do my doctor's rounds
13 with elderly people, elderly men and women --
14 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, excuse me for a moment. Were you taken
15 at Mario Cerkez's headquarters at some time after you
16 were at the War Hospital?
17 A. On the 19th, no -- yes, on the 19th. Two HVO soldiers
18 came some time after 8.00 pm, two military policeman,
19 Anto Kovac, called Zabac by the people of Vitez -- he
20 used to play soccer in Vitez and he was also a soccer
21 judge, and Ratko Nuk, also from Vitez; he was a worker
22 in the SPS factory. I knew them well. They asked for
23 me and I went with them to Vitez, to the "Dom Kulture",
24 the cultural centre, we called it the workers'
25 university, "Radnic Univerzitet", and a cinema hall was
1 there, offices, and the headquarters of all the
2 political parties were also in that building.
3 Q. Could you approach Prosecutor's exhibit 45B, please, and
4 with a green pen put a circle around that location where
5 you were taken? Dr. Mujezinovic, is there a letter
6 inside your circle? If there is, can you just for the
7 record state what that letter is?
8 A. B.
9 Q. Thank you. You can resume your seat, please.
10 Dr. Mujezinovic, when you got to that location, who was
11 there?
12 A. In one office, Mario Cerkez was sitting in that office,
13 with Zvonko Cilic, Boro Jozic, Stipo Dzigonjam, Zeljko
14 Rebac, Zeljko Sajevic.
15 Q. Were those people you have identified all members of the
16 HVO?
17 A. All of them were in uniform, with HVO insignia. I knew
18 each one of these people individually and relatively
19 well too.
20 Q. Mr. Mujezinovic, did you have a conversation -- can you
21 hear me all right with those earphones, Dr. Mujezinovic?
22 Tell us what happened when you arrived?
23 A. Mario Cerkez was, I knew from before, the Commander of
24 the HVO forces in Vitez. He asked me whether I was
25 aware of the situation that I was in, and I said that
1 I was, and then he said to me, "Then you have to do what
2 we order you to do."
3 He asked me whether I had heard about Ahmici.
4 I said that I had heard about it. Mario Cerkez repeated
5 that I had to do whatever he ordered me to do. First he
6 said that HVO lines in Vitez were broken through, as he
7 said, in the village of Dubravica from the direction of
8 Zabrdje, and that the BH-Army were advancing, was
9 entering the town towards the chemical factory and was
10 getting into town.
11 He told me that I had to call the command of the
12 Third Corps, to call Alija Izetbegovic, Haris Silajdzic,
13 Ejub Ganic and whoever else I knew, and to tell them
14 that if the BH-Army continued advancing towards the
15 town, that they have 2,223 captured Muslims. He
16 emphasised, women, children, and that he would kill all
17 of them. He also told me that I would have to go on
18 local television, and to ask the Muslims of Stari Vitez
19 to surrender their arms. Finally, he told me that
20 I would have to establish a commission. He gave me a
21 phone, and he said call Zvonko Cilic. I knew the number
22 of Ramiz Dugalic, who was Assistant Commander of the
23 Third Corps.
24 Q. Before we get to that, before Mario Cerkez who made this
25 threat to you, you have identified five other people in
1 HVO uniforms who were present. Were those people
2 present when Mario Cerkez threatened to kill the
3 2,000-plus prisoners?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. You mentioned a number of names that he said you needed
6 to call. One was the Commander of the Third Corps; is
7 that correct?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. One was Alija Izetbegovic who was the President of
10 Bosnia-Herzegovina?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Who were the other people he asked you to call?
13 A. At that time, as far as I know, Ejub Ganic was a member
14 of the Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
15 and Dr. Haris Silajdzic. I do not know whether he was
16 foreign minister or minister of the government of
17 Bosnia-Herzegovina, I do not know.
18 Q. Then at some point in time a telephone was placed in
19 front of you and did you make a telephone call or a
20 series of telephone calls?
21 A. Mario Cerkez told Zvonko Cilic to sit at the same table
22 with me and to do what he said should be done. First,
23 I knew the number of Ramiz Dugalic who was from Vitez,
24 who was a former officer of the Yugoslav People's Army.
25 Vitez was his birthplace and he worked for some period
1 of time in the Territorial Defence of Vitez. I knew all
2 of his family. I called him at the Third Corps and
3 I told him what Mario Cerkez and his command in Vitez
4 were asking for. I repeated that if the BH-Army
5 continued to advance in two directions that they would
6 kill the prisoners. I asked to talk to the Commander of
7 the Third Corps, whom I did not know. Ramiz Dugalic
8 promised that he would call me after he talked to the
9 Commander. After about half a hour, Ramiz Dugalic
10 called me and then I talked to General Hadzihasanovic,
11 the Commander of the Third Corps, and I told him what
12 Mario Cerkez had told me.
13 It was suggested to me to accept everything that
14 the HVO would ask me to do. If they asked me to sign
15 some documents, then I should sign them. I told Cilic
16 Zvonko that and he conveyed it to Mario Cerkez. After
17 about a hour Granic called me. I also called him about
18 this and he suggested to me that I remain in touch with
19 the command of the Third Corps and he said that I should
20 accept, that I should sign officially, if necessary,
21 that the army would not enter Vitez.
22 After that, I was supposed to find a group of
23 Bosniaks to negotiate with the representatives of the
24 HVO government. They told me I had made a list who
25 should be there. Mario Cerkez said, "No, you have down
1 here in the basement about 300 people. Choose whoever
2 you want."
3 Q. Did you then go down into the basement, Dr. Mujezinovic?
4 A. Yes, then I went to the basement with the military
5 police. I was wearing my white uniform, my medical
6 uniform, and I was terribly surprised when I saw people
7 in the heating room where there was still coal. Most of
8 them were from Vitez. Some of them were pensioners who
9 were sick. Among them I chose Sivo Bahtija, an
10 engineer, an electrical engineer, who was a member of
11 the SDA for Vitez; Djidic Kadir, a professor, a teacher
12 from the Municipal Committee of the SDA; Mulahalilovic
13 Nuraga, who was a teacher and director of the secondary
14 school in Vitez; then Fuad Kaknjo, who was President of
15 the government in Vitez, which was elected in November
16 1990. I said that a young man should come along with me
17 who had an artificial valve implant, Zijad Puric. We
18 came out of the basement and were taken to another
19 office. These offices -- these were the offices of
20 Gerim Muazam, rented for his private firm, the former
21 director of the SPS factory and an electrical engineer.
22 Jozic Boro and Cilic Zvonko were with us.
23 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, before we go further with what happened
24 in that particular room, I would like you to describe in
25 more detail the conditions that you observed in the
1 basement where these prisoners were kept?
2 A. It was a basement. Coal was kept there. There was a
3 big furnace for heating the building, so every winter
4 they would bring in a lot of coal to heat the building.
5 People were simply there on that coal; they could either
6 stand or sit.
7 Q. How many people were there that you saw?
8 A. I was told, I did not count them, that there was about
9 300 people there. I was told that I could choose from
10 among these 300 people a group for negotiations.
11 Q. Were the conditions overcrowded in your opinion?
12 A. Yes, very much so.
13 Q. Were there a number of sick people amongst these 300
14 people that you had known and had treated?
15 A. Yes. Because Zvonimir Cilic had worked as a social
16 worker before in Vitez, I had made a list of 20 chronic
17 patients for him, people who had heart ailments or
18 asthma, that these people should be released immediately
19 because it was suffocating in there, especially for
20 people who had asthma. He took the paper immediately
21 and he said he would see what he could do. I do not
22 know whether they released them.
23 Q. After you came out of the basement, you had a list of
24 people who were chronically ill people and you gave that
25 to Mr. Cilic who was in the HVO; is that correct?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. You advised Mr. Cilic that those people should be
3 released from custody because of their medical
4 condition?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Okay. Dr. Mujezinovic, now let us turn back to this
7 group of people who you have selected and taken to
8 another part of the cinema complex. What happened next
9 with those people?
10 A. In one office, with these people, was Zvonko Cilic, Boro
11 Jozic and the two of them, I do not know which one, told
12 these people what they were supposed to do. They were
13 told that they have 2,223 prisoners and that their task
14 was to telephone all their acquaintances and to tell
15 them that if the BH-Army continued to enter Vitez, that
16 these people would be killed, and then they started
17 phoning.
18 I had agreed with Zvonko Cilic that I should go on
19 local HVO television in Vitez to address the public,
20 about 1.00 while these people were making their phone
21 calls. I appeared on local HVO television which was
22 upstairs in that building and I called upon Muslims and
23 Croats not to shoot at each other, because that
24 inflicted harm on both one and the other, and I said,
25 literally, that only Karadzic's Chetniks could profit
1 from that, so that is all I said. This had been shown
2 several times on local television over the next few
3 days.
4 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, was your appearance on HVO television
5 voluntary or involuntary?
6 A. No, I was told that I would have to go on television.
7 Q. Were you told what you would have to say?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Who told you what you had to say?
10 A. Mario Cerkez.
11 Q. What did he tell you you had to say?
12 A. To call upon the Muslims in Stari Vitez to surrender
13 their weapons. I agreed with Zvonko Cilic, I told him
14 that nobody would listen to me, and I said what I said.
15 If necessary, I will repeat it once again.
16 MR. HARMON: That is not necessary, Dr. Mujezinovic.
17 Your Honour, it is 4.00 and perhaps this would be
18 an appropriate time to take our break.
19 JUDGE JORDA: Yes, we will resume work at 4.20.
20 (4.00 pm)
21 (A short break)
22 (4.30 pm)
23 JUDGE JORDA: The hearing is resumed; please be seated.
24 Bring in the accused.
25 (Accused brought in)
1 MR. HARMON: Thank you, Mr. President.
2 Dr. Mujezinovic, after the television broadcast had
3 concluded, where did you go?
4 A. I returned to the same room that I had been taken from,
5 where the people elected to the commission for
6 negotiations were waiting for me.
7 Q. What occurred next?
8 A. About 2.00, Zvonimir Cilic and Boro Jozic informed those
9 present that if they had finished they could stay in
10 that room to spend the night, or they could go back to
11 the basement. All of us stayed there, with the
12 exception of Fuad Kaknjo, who returned to the basement.
13 We were told that in the morning, about 6.00, Mr. Ivan
14 Santic and Mr. Pero Skopljak would come to have a talk
15 with us.
16 Q. Did they in fact come to have a talk with you the
17 following morning?
18 A. They came, not at 6.00 but at 5.00 am, Mr. Ivan Santic
19 and Mr. Pero Skopljak.
20 Q. Describe your meeting with those two individuals.
21 A. You see, I can reproduce that morning. Mr. Ivan Santic
22 addressed those present with the words to the effect
23 that the HVO government, that is the Croatian Defence
24 Council, had taken the decision, the one I had been
25 informed of by Cilic Zvonimir and Boro Jozic, that they
1 would kill the prisoners if the BH-Army continued to
2 advance. Ivan Santic said that he was very sorry that
3 this had happened, that there were many killed and
4 wounded, but that he did not consider himself to be to
5 blame, but rather Alija Izetbegovic and the Muslim
6 leaders were to blame, because they wanted a unitary
7 state and, as he said, the disillusion of
8 Bosnia-Herzegovina had been completed.
9 I had warned repeatedly the leaders in Vitez, the
10 representatives of the SDA, that the stronger party
11 would rule in Vitez, he said. Pero Skopljak agreed with
12 the previous speaker, and he too said that he was sorry,
13 but that the policy being pursued by the Muslim leaders
14 was unrealistic and unreasonable, and that if the
15 conditions that had been set were not adopted, and he
16 also added that he had said repeatedly that there would
17 be a fight in Vitez because the decisions of the HVO
18 government in Vitez had to be observed and implemented,
19 or rather of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna,
20 that these were Croatian lands, that Alija Izetbegovic
21 by his unreasonable and unrealistic policy had brought
22 the Muslim people to disaster and possible
23 annihilation. Roughly, that was the message conveyed to
24 all those present.
25 Q. Did Pero Skopljak repeat the threat to kill over 2,000
1 civilian prisoners?
2 A. Yes, I said that he agreed with the previous speaker,
3 and with the demands of Mario Cerkez, who told me that,
4 and this was told to the others by Zvonko Cilic and Boro
5 Jozic.
6 Q. What happened next, Dr. Mujezinovic?
7 A. Ivan Santic suggested that an announcement be made from
8 the meeting for the public, and he took out a piece of
9 paper and said, "Here is something that we have put down
10 on paper; do you agree with it?" He read out that paper,
11 that document, and he said that I should sign it and he,
12 so as to calm down the situation and ease the confusion
13 that had occurred in Vitez.
14 MR. HARMON: Your Honour, I would like to tender as
15 Prosecutor's exhibit 86 a copy of a document. It has
16 attached to it, your Honour, a French translation and an
17 English translation. (Handed).
18 Dr. Mujezinovic, do you recognise Prosecutor's
19 exhibit number 86?
20 A. Yes, this is my signature.
21 Q. What is this document?
22 A. It is the joint statement which Ivan Santic proposed to
23 me and the group of people who were with me in the
24 building of the HVO command in Vitez.
25 Q. Do you see two signatures on the bottom of that
1 document?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. One of those you have said is your signature; is that
4 correct?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. And the other signature, whose signature is that?
7 A. Yes, this is the signature of Ivan Santic.
8 MR. HARMON: Your Honour, I would ask that Prosecutor's
9 exhibit 86 can be admitted into evidence. The source of
10 this document, your Honour, is ECMM.
11 Dr. Mujezinovic, if you would kindly read this
12 document into the record, starting at the top and moving
13 down to the bottom. Please proceed.
14 A. Read it?
15 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Prosecutor, it is a question that has
16 already been raised. In order to speed up the debate,
17 is it absolutely necessary that it be read? I think
18 that if the parties are agreed, the transcript
19 identifies the exhibit. I think there have been about
20 100 various documents to be read and if all the parties
21 are agreed -- when there is disagreement over an exhibit
22 then, of course, we will read it. Is everybody agreed?
23 MR. HARMON: Your Honour, I am in agreement. I would like
24 however certain provisions of this document read because
25 I am going to ask the witness to comment on those
1 provisions.
2 JUDGE JORDA: That is a different matter.
3 MR. HARMON: Thank you very much, Mr. President.
4 Dr. Mujezinovic, would you read the second
5 provision of this document.
6 A. "The civilian representatives of the Croatian and the
7 Muslim peoples unanimously declare that no conflict
8 would have arisen in Vitez this time too, were it not
9 for the influence of global politics and military
10 operations coming from outside our municipality."
11 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, could you please comment on that
12 particular provision you have just read.
13 A. Point 2 regarding extraneous influence but the Croatian
14 Democratic Community and the HVO were local institutions
15 and they were deeply involved in all these events.
16 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, will you turn to the third provision and
17 please read that into the record.
18 A. "Since many people have already been killed, wounded and
19 captured, we request that the military commanders act in
20 accordance with international humanitarian standards as
21 soon as possible."
22 That is all right.
23 Q. In your opinion, Dr. Mujezinovic, did the military
24 commanders of the HVO act in accordance with
25 international humanitarian standards as soon as
1 possible?
2 A. No.
3 Q. Please explain your answer.
4 A. I was not present at the talks in Vitez. The Commander
5 of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sefer Halilovic, and
6 the Chief of Staff of the HVO, Petkovic Milivoj came to
7 Vitez, and the exchange of the captured and killed was
8 agreed on the principle of all for all. However the HVO
9 did not respect this but 13 prominent Muslims from Vitez
10 were transferred to the prison in Busovaca. Among them
11 was the President of the government of Vitez, Mr. Fuad.
12 Q. Were the other people who were also transferred
13 intellectuals in the Muslim community of Vitez?
14 A. The others either left Vitez afterwards or were
15 displaced and as far as I know they were taken to dig
16 trenches and to fortify HVO lines.
17 Q. My question is: of those 13 people, Dr. Mujezinovic, were
18 those people who were leaders of the Muslim community in
19 Vitez?
20 A. Could you please repeat the question?
21 Q. You said that 13 people were not immediately released by
22 the HVO but were instead sent to Busovaca prison. My
23 question to you is: were those 13 people who were
24 leaders in the Muslim community? Were they
25 intellectuals; were they professional people?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. In what other respects, Dr. Mujezinovic, did the military
3 commanders of the HVO not act in accordance with
4 international humanitarian standards as soon as
5 possible?
6 A. When I asked for assistance at work, I knew that we had
7 a doctor doing surgery specialisation, Zdravko Murica,
8 Dr. Pavkovic who was specialising in anesthesiology, and
9 I asked that a medical student, Mulahalilovic Amar be
10 released, and I asked Dr. Bruno to do this. All three
11 were brought in captivity, and the medical student, who
12 was in his final years -- his hands were bloody from
13 trench-digging. He told me that people who were
14 captured were being taken to the front lines to dig
15 trenches.
16 Q. Were people also expelled from the Vitez municipality by
17 the HVO after this document was signed?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Let me ask you, Dr. Mujezinovic, if you would turn to
20 point 4 of this particular document and read that into
21 the record?
22 A. "Both sides agree that in Vitez and Province 10, the
23 Vance/Owen plan should be implemented even before it is
24 signed by the Serbian side. Also the army command shall
25 retain their structure in conformity with the ethnic
1 composition of the province and the municipality."
2 Q. What comments do you have about that provision?
3 A. That provision had been agreed on in Geneva, and at the
4 local level we had no right nor was it our duty to sign
5 this particular provision before any agreement was
6 reached because we did not know what the results of
7 those negotiations were.
8 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, what was done with this particular
9 document?
10 A. This document was repeatedly shown on the local TV
11 programme in Vitez.
12 Q. After you signed this document, what happened to
13 Mr. Santic and Mr. Skopljak?
14 A. They left the room and Boro Jozic told us that all of us
15 had to go down into the basement, and then Zvonko Cilic
16 came back and told me that I should not go to the
17 basement, that there were many wounded and I had to go
18 back to work at the health centre, and I was taken there
19 again by the military police.
20 Q. One last question about this document, Prosecutor's
21 exhibit 86: was this document signed by you freely and
22 voluntarily?
23 A. I was ordered to sign it, to sign everything. In fact
24 I was threatened to do it, and I was told also by phone
25 from the command of the Third Corps that I should sign
1 everything.
2 Q. Dr. Mujezinovic, after you signed this document, were you
3 taken back to the health centre?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Very briefly, tell me what occurred at the health
6 centre?
7 A. There was a great deal to do there, indeed, and
8 I already told you that I had asked Dr. Bruno to bring
9 some doctors to work, which he actually did, and the
10 three that I mentioned came to work. The staff working
11 there, especially the doctors, were very young and
12 inexperienced. We worked in the best possible way;
13 whoever was wounded we extended medical aid,
14 I personally made a selection if somebody needed to be
15 transferred to Travnik or to Zenica, and some were also
16 transferred to Split. I made the proposals and they
17 were transferred by helicopter.
18 Q. One of those doctors you had summoned was a medical
19 student; is that correct?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. What was his name?
22 A. Mulahalilovic Amar.
23 Q. What was his condition when he came to the health centre
24 to work with you and the other doctors?
25 MR. HAYMAN: The question has been asked and answered, your
1 Honour.
2 MR. HARMON: Let me get the translation, first.
3 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Hayman, allow the President to regulate the
4 technical problems. What happened, you did not hear the
5 translation?
6 MR. HARMON: I did not hear the translation.
7 JUDGE JORDA: The question will be put again. I also asked
8 for a question to be repeated, so please repeat the
9 question and you will hear the answer. Please repeat
10 the question.
11 MR. HARMON: What was the question of the medical student who
12 came to the hospital to work with the other doctors?
13 A. Mulahalilovic was devoted regarding the wounded, and
14 I asked him why he spent so much time over the wounded
15 and then he showed me his hands and they were all bloody
16 and I asked how come, and he said it was from
17 trench-digging. He had never done any digging before,
18 and his whole palms were full of bloody blisters.
19 Q. Did you treat any soldiers who had accents that were
20 from outside the Vitez municipality?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Briefly explain that, if you would?
23 A. In our health centre, there were troops coming whom
24 I did not know. They were not from Vitez, because
25 I knew more or less the whole domestic population.
1 I did not ask them where they were from. They had a
2 different accent than the one we have in Vitez. I said
3 that we acted as professionals, treating everybody. If
4 somebody needed surgery, they were sent to the medical
5 centres in Zenica, Travnik, and a part of them to Split.
6 Q. Had you made enquiry of any HVO soldier prior to April
7 16th about soldiers from outside the municipality of
8 Vitez?
9 A. Yes, on one occasion, in the health centre.
10 Q. When was that?
11 A. This was some time in January. I do not remember
12 exactly the date. A young man, an HVO soldier, came for
13 me to examine him. There were three soldiers with him
14 who had a different accent, so I asked him, "Who are
15 they?", and he said, "Never mind, doctor, we come from
16 all over the place, from Daruvar, Virovitica" and he
17 told me his ID card, "My command is in Split." I did
18 not check the card.
19 Q. What country is Split in?
20 A. Croatia.
21 MR. HARMON: Your Honour, I would like to continue my
22 examination of Dr. Mujezinovic, but I would ask that we
23 be permitted to go into private session. I have only a
24 brief additional part of my examination and there are
25 parts of this that are extremely sensitive.
1 JUDGE JORDA: Private session?
2 MR. HARMON: Private session, your Honour.
3 JUDGE JORDA: Very well, we will have a private session.
4 Mr. Registrar, will you please make the
5 arrangements? It is all right.
6 (In closed session)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13 Pages 1726 to 1731 in closed session
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (In open session)
16 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Nobilo.
17 Cross-examined by MR. NOBILO
18 Q. Thank you, Mr. President. We thank you because you make
19 our work easier. I shall question the witness first in
20 continuity and then my colleague Mr. Hayman will
21 continue.
22 Dr. Mujezinovic, to go back a bit now to 1990,
23 before 1990 in Yugoslavia, in Bosnia, could people
24 freely express their political views outside those
25 coordinates that were set by the Communist Party?
1 A. It was not desirable.
2 Q. Was it possible to express political views and to
3 organise oneself freely?
4 A. Yes, according to the rules of that party.
5 Q. So could parties be established?
6 A. You mean national parties?
7 Q. Any kind of parties.
8 A. No.
9 Q. Can we then say that in 1990 the first free elections
10 were held?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. The HDZ of Bosnia and Herzegovina, did this party have
13 an assembly of its own?
14 A. Probably, yes.
15 Q. Did this assembly elect its President and other
16 executive organs?
17 A. Probably, yes. I did not attend that.
18 Q. Did you know that it was registered in the territory of
19 Bosnia-Herzegovina?
20 A. As far as I know, yes; I did not see their registration.
21 Q. Do you remember the referendum on the independence of
22 Bosnia-Herzegovina?
23 A. Was it carried out in Vitez? Yes.
24 Q. Can you tell me, as a citizen of Vitez who knew a lot of
25 people there, what were the results of that referendum?
1 A. The population of Vitez, of Bosnian and Croat
2 nationality, voted in a large percentage for a sovereign
3 independent Bosnia-Herzegovina.
4 Q. We are now reaching the point of the Crisis Staff. Can
5 you tell me which is the body that founded it?
6 A. Two national parties, the Croat Democratic Community and
7 the Party of Democratic Action.
8 Q. Do you know what were the legal grounds for establishing
9 that Crisis Staff?
10 A. Mr. Varupa Midhat, a lawyer, said on that occasion that
11 for that there are no legal grounds, but in a situation
12 of war, as he explained it, according to the
13 constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a War Presidency
14 could be established, not a Crisis Staff. That is the
15 explanation that was given.
16 Q. Tell me, Croats and Serbs in Vitez, did they believe
17 that this Crisis Staff was a legal or an illegal body?
18 A. A legal body.
19 Q. Do you remember, in the morning you talked about that
20 soldier of the BH-Army in the hotel Vitez, and orders
21 came from Travnik to carry out an investigation. I am
22 interested in hearing who submitted the criminal
23 report.
24 A. At the Crisis Staff, it was concluded that an
25 investigation should be carried out on this murder.
1 Q. Was an inquest carried out and other investigation?
2 A. As far as I know, Vlado Miskovic, the Investigating
3 Prosecutor of the municipal court in Travnik, was
4 entrusted with that task. The results of that
5 investigation have not been completed, to the best of my
6 knowledge. Only Vlado Miskovic, who is from the village
7 of Krisancevo Selo, I think, from Vitez -- he is
8 employed in the court in Travnik as Prosecutor.
9 Q. You mentioned Hakija Cenjic as the Commander of the
10 Territorial Defence at the beginning. When did he stop
11 being the Commander of the Territorial Defence in Vitez?
12 A. He stopped being that some time in August 1992.
13 Q. Do you know the reason why he ceased being Commander?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Could you explain what it was about, what was the
16 reason?
17 A. Mr. Hakija Cenjic is a teacher of physics in the high
18 school and a reserve major of the former army. He asked
19 me, as a doctor, to withdraw. He said that I should
20 withdraw, that he should withdraw, rather, that he
21 should get an easier job, Mr. Cenjic Hakija. I sent him
22 for further examinations to a well known institute in
23 Zagreb, Dr. Skrabalo, the best known institute for
24 diabetes and metabolism illnesses. From the institute
25 where he worked is also Mr. Granic. The current Foreign
1 Minister of Croatia also used to work there, so
2 treatment with insulin was suggested to him there.
3 Perhaps I should not be saying what his illness is, but
4 you do have his evidence that he was a patient in Zagreb
5 and what suggestions were made to him, and physically he
6 simply could not take all of this. Mr. Hakija Cenjic --
7 as I had suggested to the Executive Board of the party
8 that they put up a new candidate. He personally thanked
9 me for doing that as a doctor.
10 Q. I did not expect too many medical details. Please, just
11 tell me: what is the body that relieved him of this
12 duty?
13 A. The district staff of the TO.
14 Q. At whose proposal?
15 A. At the proposal of the Executive Board of the SDA in
16 Vitez because he himself was a member of that body.
17 Q. Who was elected to replace him?
18 A. Mr. Sefkija Djidic was elected to replace him who at that
19 time was the head of the TO staff in Vitez.
20 Q. Who proposed Mr. Djidic and who elected him?
21 A. The Executive Board of the SDA from Vitez was looking
22 for a suitable candidate who had professional
23 qualifications. Sefkija Djidic at that time was a
24 reserve first class captain and a teacher of physical
25 education. He was born in Vitez and he knew Vitez very
1 very well. At that point in time, we thought that
2 Sefkija Djidic would truly do everything to prevent a
3 conflict from breaking out in Vitez because he knew
4 everyone in Vitez very well and everything in Vitez very
5 well.
6 Q. So the Executive Board proposed that?
7 A. They only presented the proposal.
8 Q. Who elected him, who appointed him?
9 A. The district staff of the TO in Zenica.
10 Q. You mentioned that Ivica Santic asked Fuad Kaknjo to go
11 back to his job as President of the managing board after
12 the incident when the soldiers came into the police.
13 A. Yes, I did.
14 Q. Did Fuad Kaknjo respond to that invitation; did he
15 continue working?
16 A. Yes, he did.
17 Q. When this incident occurred, when these flags were
18 hoisted and when the army broke in, and you also said
19 that Santic was absent?
20 A. Yes, that is what we were told by Fuad Kaknjo after
21 Ivica Santic called him. He was away on business; he
22 was not in Vitez at that time.
23 Q. I would like to know: that evening, that night when that
24 happened, did Fuad Kaknjo convene a meeting of the
25 Crisis Staff? Were you there at that meeting on that
1 occasion?
2 A. No, he did not convene a meeting.
3 Q. Do you know who broke into the police station and the
4 municipal building, who exactly?
5 A. The policeman told us that soldiers of the HVO wearing
6 HVO insignia broke into these buildings.
7 Q. Let us go back to Valenta a bit. Valenta spoke about
8 the first meeting, the reasons for setting up the
9 Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna. You told us about
10 that in the morning so I am interested in hearing
11 whether at any point he said that Herceg-Bosna would
12 secede from Bosnia-Herzegovina?
13 A. Would it secede?
14 Q. Yes, did he announce that; did he say that was the
15 objective?
16 A. I do not remember him saying that.
17 Q. Tell me: there was a Crisis Staff, you said, in Vitez of
18 the Vitez municipality. Were there crisis staffs of
19 local communities or villages as lower organisational
20 units?
21 A. Yes, there was something to that effect at local
22 community level.
23 Q. Do you recall how many local communities there were, how
24 many crisis staffs?
25 A. No, I do not really know that.
1 Q. Tell me, in 1992, when these crisis staffs were
2 established, could the Crisis Staff of the local
3 community use their own soldiers at their own
4 discretion?
5 A. No.
6 Q. So such things never happened?
7 A. No, because the army had their own command, and the
8 Crisis Staff could use them.
9 Q. You mean of the municipality and nobody else?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. I am interested in hearing whether you know which body
12 set up the HVO government in Vitez. How was the HVO
13 government in Vitez set up?
14 A. I do not know that.
15 Q. You said that the civilian HVO or HDZ offered to you in
16 Vitez -- I mean to you, representatives of the Muslim
17 people -- a division of power according to the results
18 of the elections in 1990, subjecting all the armed
19 forces to a joint authority and also setting up a joint
20 army in proportion to the number of units and working
21 according to the decrees of the Croatian Community of
22 Herceg-Bosna. Why were these terms unacceptable for
23 you, or rather, were some acceptable and others
24 unacceptable?
25 A. It was unacceptable to us the heading itself, because we
1 thought that in Vitez we could not have a single nation
2 government.
3 Q. But would that not be a multinational government if the
4 results of the elections from 1990 would have been
5 respected?
6 A. In its very name it is a single nation government, the
7 Croatian Defence Council.
8 Q. Let us move on to the Co-ordinating Committee for the
9 Protection of Muslims now. Could you tell us who
10 launched this initiative to set up this Co-ordinating
11 Committee?
12 A. The Executive Committee of the SDA party convened a
13 meeting of all members of the other Parliamentary
14 parties and prominent persons, business people of
15 Bosniak nationality from Vitez. At this meeting, which
16 was a large meeting, the decision was reached to set up
17 a Co-ordinating Committee for Protecting the Interests
18 of Muslims in Vitez.
19 Q. Could you tell me now -- can you remember who was
20 elected then to this Co-ordinating Committee, these 19
21 names?
22 A. The President of the Co-ordinating Committee for
23 Protecting the Interests of Muslims was Fuad Kaknjo, the
24 President of the municipal government. Munib Kajmovic
25 was a member.
1 Q. Can you remember: what was Munib Kajmovic in charge of?
2 A. I do not know what he was in charge of. I can just
3 enumerate the members. I know that I was supposed to
4 monitor health, and I can enumerate the members.
5 Q. Please, let us hear the members.
6 A. Salibasic Hasan, an economist; Salkic Suad, an
7 electrical engineer; Seco Fuad, veterinarian from Vitez;
8 Kalco Nusret, a mechanical engineer from Vitez, a member
9 of the SDP, and Salkic Suad is a member of the
10 reformists; Sivro Hasim, a member of the Youth League.
11 Q. Sivro Hasim or Sivro Bahtija?
12 A. Both Sivro Hasim and Sivro Bahtija. Krajic Cazim, a
13 private entrepreneur; Kovacevic Halil, a private
14 entrepreneur; Vitkic Sulejman, a private entrepreneur;
15 Cazim Ahmic, he is an engineer of organisation; Ahmic
16 Sulejman, an economist. I cannot remember anyone else.
17 Q. I could read it out to you and if you agree, please tell
18 me and if not you can deny it. For economic affairs,
19 was Nusret Kalco in charge of that? What did he do
20 otherwise; tell me.
21 A. He is a mechanical engineer in the work organisation
22 Vitezit. He was Deputy Director General for finance.
23 Q. Hasan Salibasic?
24 A. He is an economist.
25 Q. Is it true that he was in charge of finance.
1 A. I do not know; I think he was, I think.
2 Q. Tell me, what is he by professional training and where
3 did he work?
4 JUDGE JORDA: Is it that important for you, Mr. Nobilo? Are
5 these questions important for you? Okay, because we
6 have a lot about this Commission for the Protection of
7 Muslims and about the members, but I would like to
8 remind you that it is 5.30, and we will end the hearing
9 after you complete this question.
10 MR. NOBILO: I suggest then that we conclude now, because
11 I would like to continue my questioning on the
12 co-ordinating committee. I said that I suggest that we
13 conclude now, because I have quite a bit of questioning
14 left on this co-ordinating committee.
15 JUDGE JORDA: Very well, but please think about the time you
16 need in view of the time taken by the Prosecutor, so you
17 will tell us tomorrow morning roughly how much time you
18 need for your cross-examination, both of you, Mr. Nobilo
19 and Mr. Hayman. Very well, the meeting is adjourned. It
20 will be resumed tomorrow at 10.00.
21 (5.35 pm)
22 (Court adjourned until 10.00 am the following day)
23
24
25