1 Thursday, 28 February 2002

2 [Open session]

3 --- Upon commencing at 9.04 a.m.

4 [The accused entered court]

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Good morning, Mr. Brdjanin, as usual I'm addressing

6 you, hoping to hear the same reply. Are you hearing me in a language that

7 you can understand?

8 THE ACCUSED BRDJANIN: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honour.

9 Yes, I am.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: You may sit down. And General Talic, good morning

11 to you. Same question are you hearing me in a language that you can

12 understand?

13 THE ACCUSED TALIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honours.

14 Yes, I can.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. You may sit down. Appearances for the

16 Prosecution?

17 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, Joanna Korner for the Prosecution,

18 assisted by Denise Gustin, case manager.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, Ms. Korner, and good morning to you.

20 Appearances for Mr. Brdjanin?

21 MR. ACKERMAN: Good morning, Your Honours. I'm John Ackerman and

22 I appear with Milka Maglov and Tania Radosavljevic.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Good morning to you, and appearances for General

24 Talic?

25 MR. DE ROUX: [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. President, Your

1 Honours. I'm Xavier de Roux, attorney, assisted by Natasha

2 Fauveau-Ivanovic and Fabien Masson.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Good morning to you. So is there anything you want

4 to raise before we start with the witness?

5 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, no. I've handed to the registry,

6 representative of the Registry, the sitting list. I agree more or less

7 with what Mr. Ackerman and Mr. de Roux have suggested.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: That's perfect. I thank you. So I think we can

9 admit the witness. Yes, please call the case. It's an oversight of mine.

10 In case we don't know that we are sitting.

11 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. This is case number

12 IT-99-36-T, the Prosecutor versus Radoslav Brdjanin and Momir Talic.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Madam Registrar.

14 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, just very briefly, before I forget it

15 the order that was issued yesterday with regard to humanitarian

16 organisations has, as part of it, that if an ex parte application is to be

17 made in accordance with that order by the Defence, that the organisation

18 should also receive notification. There is no indication in the order as

19 to how that notification should be done. I don't know how to do that.

20 And so some way -- the Defence should be provided with a manner in which

21 to notify the organisation.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. I'll have a look at it again. Yes,

23 Ms. Korner.

24 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, we can assist to this extent: We can

25 provide to Your Honour and to the Defence the name of the person who we

1 have been dealing with which may assist.

2 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, we need a fax number or something. There

3 must be something beyond the name.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: I appreciate that, Ms. Korner. Thank you. All

5 right, thank you Mr. Ackerman. Thank you Ms. Korner

6 MS. KORNER: Just before the witness comes in, on that note we

7 propose today to disclose to the Defence the two statements that are

8 involved at present. And we would hope to call the witnesses immediately

9 after the Easter break, subject to their convenience.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Dzonlic.

11 [The witness entered court]

12 JUDGE AGIUS: Good morning to you, Mr. Dzonlic. Again, once more,

13 may I ask you to read the statement that you read yesterday and the day

14 before? Then you may sit down and you will be questioned further by the

15 Prosecution. Thank you.

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

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

18 WITNESS: AMIR DZONLIC [Resumed]

19 [Witness answered through interpreter]

20 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you. You my sit down. Ms. Korner, you may

21 proceed.

22 MS. KORNER: Thank you very much. I wonder if the witness could

23 be handed again the documents or the set of documents he was looking at

24 yesterday, which bear the exhibit number, P227.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: We had arrived at decision number 4.

1 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, we have.

2 Examination by Ms. Korner: [Continued]

3 Q. Mr. Dzonlic, could you go to item number 13, please, on that

4 decision number 4? It's the last item.

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Does that show that professor Dragolub Mirjanic is hereby

7 appointed a new member of the war staff of the Autonomous Region of

8 Krajina, replacing Rajko Kuzmanovic?

9 A. Yes. That is what it says, but instead of Rajko Kuzmanovic, it

10 says Dragolub Mirjanic. I heard a different name. Any way it's Dragolub

11 Mirjanic. Just in the way it says here in the document. Maybe the

12 interpretation was wrong.

13 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I've only drawn attention to that

14 because it explains the decision -- well, what's happened I feel is -- can

15 I for a moment digress and show Your Honours? Your Honours, I think I

16 referred to in it in opening but there is a different version of this

17 document which is disclosure number 313 in the binders. It's Exhibit --

18 sorry, just a moment -- P168, and the original B/C/S version, which is on

19 the back, shows a couple of handwritten names at the end, but that shows

20 Dr. Kuzmanovic. The gazette, of course was published considerably after.

21 This is clearly an original published at the time so obviously the gazette

22 by that stage replaced the names. We think what's happened is that, not

23 surprisingly, a lot of cutting and pasting goes on to save time and the

24 translation must have cut and paste from the original document, but as I

25 say, it is being corrected.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: But it does seem--

2 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Your Honour.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: It does seem, nonetheless, that initially, at least

4 on -- as a result of the meeting or during the meeting of the 5th May, it

5 was Dr. Rajko Kuzmanovic that was appointed as one of the members of the

6 Crisis Staff of the Autonomous Region of Krajina. Now, assuming that

7 Crisis Staff and war -- and --

8 MS. KORNER: It is one and the same thing.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Is one and the same thing, it seems to me that

10 something must have happened between the 5th and the 8th of May,

11 presumably either the non-acceptance on the part of Kuzmanovic or anything

12 might have happened. And he was replaced by Professor Dragolub Mirjanic

13 during the meeting of the 8th of May. This is how I take it.

14 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I feel that's right.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: So but in any case, it does seem to me also that an

16 explanation was needed because the B/C/S translation or version of what

17 appears to be decision number 2 shows directly Mirjanic and not

18 Kuzmanovic.

19 MS. KORNER: It does.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: So is the picture clear to everyone now?

21 MR. ACKERMAN: No. It's not even close to clear. There are just

22 a myriad of problems with this, Your Honour, and I don't know when, if

23 ever, they will get resolved, but these documents are not the same. There

24 are multiple documents appointing -- purporting to appoint members of this

25 Crisis Staff, War Presidency, whatever it's called, and they are all

1 different. And I think at some point the Prosecution sort of needs to

2 decide which of these documents they are going to argue to you is the

3 authentic document. But one of the documents appoints an entirely

4 different Crisis Staff than others. And I don't know that the Prosecution

5 is even capable of proving which one is authoritative. Ordinarily one

6 would say that published in the Official Gazette is the authoritative

7 document but it's obviously not the case.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: What still remain unanswered to an extent, I mean,

9 what -- I mean this is not something which is going to throw the case one

10 way or another in any case, but what we have here definitely, I mean also

11 so that you know beforehand how my mind works at least, that to me, what

12 should be looked at by the Trial Chamber as the most reliable or the

13 original document that we have is the official government -- Official

14 Gazette or government gazette, et cetera. If what is purported to be a

15 translation contains something which does not tally with the original

16 Official Gazette, then obviously what would be required is an

17 explanation. And the explanation that is forthcoming from the Prosecution

18 is that there might have been some cutting and pasting which resulted in

19 someone including in the name -- in the list the alteration, the change or

20 the new-comer in the sort of a pre-emptive manner. Which again -- I mean,

21 may be accepted and it's not going to change much. Yes, have you

22 finished, Mr. Ackerman? Because there is also Maitre de Roux behind you

23 and his figure is more imposing.

24 MR. ACKERMAN: Can I finish the train of thought that I'm on?

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Certainly.

1 MR. ACKERMAN: The problem, Your Honour, is this. The -- what is

2 published in the Official Gazette, which one ordinarily would think is the

3 authoritative version flies in the face of all the evidence. There is a

4 document that Ms. Korner referred to, and I think it has a Prosecution

5 number, which has in that list of persons, it has a number 16 and a number

6 17, and those have been translated - and, Ms. Korner, I'm looking at your

7 document 2.10 at this point - been translated as the 15 named members plus

8 the presidents of the War Presidencies of the municipalities and the

9 deputies of the Assembly of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina,

10 also as members of the Crisis Staff. And I believe that the evidence in

11 the case will show that that was in fact the makeup of the Crisis Staff

12 and not what appears in the Official Gazette.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Maitre de Roux?

14 MR. DE ROUX: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I wanted to make a

15 very simple remark, and that is that this cannot be a problem of

16 translation because it is quite clear, I have before my eyes the original

17 of the Official Gazette, and the Official Gazette does not mention the

18 name of Mr. Kuzmanovic. Therefore, what is presented as a translation of

19 the decision cannot be a translation of the decision. This is a document

20 which was compiled, I don't know how, but it cannot be translation,

21 because a translation cannot replace one name by another.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: In fact, you are right, but what -- there is

23 definitely a problem of translation as regards document 2, because

24 document 2, in the original, what is purported to be the original Official

25 Gazette, as you correctly state, number 11, member number 11, in the

1 Crisis Staff, is Dragolub Mirjanic and not Kuzmanovic. So presumably one

2 would not have expected that to be translated into Kuzmanovic. That's

3 what -- that's why I actually stated earlier that some sort of explanation

4 ought to be forthcoming. On the other hand, it is also, and it should be

5 also obvious -- if it's obvious to me, it should be obvious to you, that

6 if that is the case, if in other words on the 5th of May of 1992, the

7 composition agreed upon or established was as shown in the government

8 gazette here. In other words, member number 11 was Dragolub Mirjanic.

9 Then I don't see any sense at all, when in the next page, number 13, you

10 have exactly the B/C/S version of what you find in the English

11 translation. In other words, it says - I don't know the language, but I

12 can -- I know a little bit of Cyrillic so I can understand what it states,

13 and basically it states that Kuzmanovic is being replaced by Dragolub

14 Mirjanic. So if an explanation is in order from the Prosecution, the

15 Prosecution can actually rely on the discrepancy that emerges from the

16 original document itself, even though this makes confusion more confounded

17 to an extent but more or less, I mean, I think the Trial Chamber is happy

18 with the explanation given that it may have been a case of cutting and

19 pasting and within three days the picture changed somehow and one person

20 replaced another and whoever was in charge of issuing or publishing the

21 government gazette may have had a document with some note on it or

22 something, as normally happens sometimes.

23 Yes, Ms. Korner? Sorry to have kept you standing for so long.

24 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, can I say I'm only guessing this is what

25 the Translation Department did. It's nothing to do with the Prosecution

1 or whatever and it's not a confusion about the document. I don't know

2 what document Mr. Ackerman has referred to, because 2.10, according to our

3 records, is addressed to all municipal boards of the SDS to assess the

4 possibility of establishing a Serbian municipality. Our case is that

5 there was a change in the composition of the Crisis Staff/War Staff/War

6 Presidency, which replaced Dr. Rajko Kuzmanovic with the other gentleman

7 and there was also a change in the last two, from the -- that original

8 handwritten to what went into the gazette. And I don't know what Mr.

9 Ackerman is talking about because those are the only documents that I'm

10 aware of.

11 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, it's 3.13, I read the wrong number.

12 There are two translations that I've been provided of that document, of

13 that same document. They are slightly different translations of that

14 document. But they are both obviously translations of 3.13.

15 MS. KORNER: Does Your Honour have a copy of it there? If not --

16 I'm going to ask for it to be put up on the ELMO and then Your Honours can

17 see.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: I think so, yes. 313.

19 MS. KORNER: It's Exhibit P168, binder 2.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: P168 and I would like to see it in both verses,

21 English and B/C/S.

22 MR. ACKERMAN: There are two English versions which as long as we

23 are putting them on the ELMO both the English versions need to go on too,

24 I would think.

25 MS. KORNER: Well, could I ask the usher when he has a moment to

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1 give me the two English versions that Mr. Ackerman is talking about?

2 Because we are only aware of one. Your Honour, I'm sorry this is taking

3 time and I'm sorry, Mr. Dzonlic because I think it's worth sorting out

4 now.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: I think so because I figure out this might happen

6 again and again.

7 MS. KORNER: One appears to be a translation done by yourself,

8 Mr. Ackerman.

9 MR. ACKERMAN: They are both I got from you. I haven't done

10 translations myself. I think one of them may have been an attachment,

11 early on an attachment, supporting document. It may have come out.

12 MS. KORNER: Yes, Your Honour, I'm helpfully told by Ms. Gustin

13 one is a draft translation. In the good old days we got a draft done into

14 final and so the other is the final translation.

15 Your Honour, can I ask that the -- first of all the English

16 version be put up on the ELMO? And can we go down to the bottom of the

17 document, please? And perhaps you could put it in the middle somewhere?

18 Thank you. Right. Your Honour will see that number 16 and 17, presidents

19 of RP municipalities or number 16, presidents of RP municipalities and

20 then something illegible in handwriting is number 17. If we turn it over

21 so that the B/C/S version is there, Your Honours will see that the two

22 handwritten ones, and what appears to be the stamp and signature of Mr.

23 Erceg. So this was -- it would appear from the face of it -- to be the

24 document that was produced at or about the time, before it got into the

25 gazette. Now, if one goes back to the document that we are looking --

1 that we were looking at with the witness -- [Microphone not activated]

2 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Ms. Korner. The microphone

3 has been switched off.

4 MS. KORNER: If I could have that --

5 MR. ACKERMAN: You've not seen the other English translation which

6 I think you have to see. I ask that it be put on the ELMO and it hasn't

7 yet. It should be.

8 MS. KORNER: The draft or the final?

9 MR. ACKERMAN: It says draft but it seems to be more accurate than

10 what says final because it includes the language from paragraphs 16 and 17

11 where the other one leaves it out.

12 MS. KORNER: Well, we no longer -- I no longer have the draft.

13 Perhaps Mr. Ackerman would like it put it on the ELMO. Arrange for it to

14 be put on the ELMO.

15 I think, Your Honour, what -- I'm guessing and we can get whoever

16 translated it to say, is that's what the original translator thought was

17 written. Whoever revised it for the final decided that it was not clear

18 enough and that's why it's left out but that's a guess. Your Honour, in

19 any event, that's apparently that. But if one goes back to the gazette

20 which we are looking at, --

21 JUDGE AGIUS: I think it's fairly clear what happened now. It's

22 even -- before it was a little bit nebulous but now it's very clear. What

23 obviously happened was that on the 5th of May or thereabouts, there was

24 this document forthcoming from the --

25 MS. KORNER: Executive council, Your Honour.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: Exactly, which had, on the face of it, two blanks to

2 be filled in, in other words, the insertion of two specific names. One

3 would be number 17, being the presidents of the municipalities, and the

4 other one, whoever you said. And number 11, in the meantime, was

5 definitely at the time, Mr. Kuzmanovic. What happened is that on the 8th

6 a decision was taken to replace Kuzmanovic with Dragolub Mirjanic and in

7 the meantime, the two names that would have featured or been slotted in

8 number 16 and number 17, were known. So whoever was responsible for the

9 publication took the liberty of filling in number 16 and 17 with the names

10 of the two persons indicated to him. In the meantime he must have or she

11 must have known that Kuzmanovic had been replaced by Mirjanic and there

12 you are. You have someone affecting the changes maybe with or without

13 authority, but that explains what could have possibly and, not just

14 possibly, very possibly happen.

15 Yes, Mr. Ackerman? I think we are wasting time actually, but I

16 am, of course, I'm very anxious to hear what you have to say.

17 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I have -- all these documents I was

18 intending to use during my cross-examination, but now that the matter has

19 come up it would almost look disingenuous if I wait and do it then rather

20 than make it clear now.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: It's only fair that you do it now.

22 MR. ACKERMAN: There is another document called 3.450 from the

23 Prosecution which also purports -- which I have marked as defendant

24 Brdjanin Exhibit 49A and B, and the English translation is not a draft

25 translation. It's a final translation. And it lists as a member of the

1 Crisis Staff someone named Milan Cuvalic [phoen] in the translated

2 version, in the B/C/S version, that person is listed as Milan Puvacic,

3 which is a completely different name and could not possibly have been

4 mistranslated. And so the mystery deepens how these things happen. Ms.

5 Korner takes the position that that one document that we just looked at

6 was a draft translation so it must not be right but here is a final

7 translation that has the same kind of errors in it. And I'm not sure it's

8 possible for the Prosecution to establish who was on this Crisis Staff at

9 this point.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Ms. Korner? Let's not waste much more time on

11 this. Mr. Ackerman must remember also that there may be very often the

12 most simple explanation for all these. My name in Malta has been

13 published. Sometimes they transpose the I with the U and I become a

14 different person or sometimes people who know me by my real name, Carmel

15 and others know me by my other name Lino so it goes all -- and I become

16 Carmel Lino Agius, Carmen A. Agius and there is a hell of a lot of

17 confusion. And it's all the same person, I can assure you. No

18 schizophrenia involved.

19 Yes, Ms. Korner.

20 MS. KORNER: Well, Your Honour, I agree with you. I don't think

21 we need to pursue this digression any further.

22 Q. Mr. Dzonlic, I'm sorry for that. Could I just ask you then

23 finally on this topic, do you know first of all who Dr. Rajko Kuzmanovic

24 was?

25 A. Yes. I know who Professor Rajko Kuzmanovic was. He was my

1 professor at the law school in Banja Luka. He taught me political

2 science, about political systems.

3 Q. And the gentleman who replaced him, Mirjanic, do you know who he

4 was?

5 A. I don't know who he is, but I have heard about Dr. Dragolub

6 Mirjanic but I don't know him.

7 Q. Very well. All right. Can we now move on to a further conclusion

8 in the gazette? If we could go, please, to number 6? Yes, number 6,

9 please. And if we look at conclusion number 2, the item that starts,

10 "Decisions adopted by the War Staff of the Autonomous Region of Krajina

11 are to be strictly respected in all public and economic organisations."

12 Now, you've already told us that the majority of companies in the

13 Banja Luka area at this stage were state-owned. How would such a

14 conclusion or such a decision be enforced?

15 A. I apologise, this conclusion that I have, it is on page 6, in the

16 second part. The session of the 9th of May, 1992, of the Crisis Staff,

17 paragraph 2 of the conclusion, item 2 of the conclusion.

18 Q. Yes, that's right.

19 A. That's that.

20 Q. Yes. I'm asking you -- I'm sorry, in case you haven't found it,

21 I'm asking you about the decision, the part of paragraph number 2, which

22 is the last part, in the English translation, "Decisions adopted by the

23 War Staff of the Autonomous Region of Krajina are to be strictly respected

24 in all public and economic organisations."

25 A. Yes, I can see it.

1 Q. And the question was: How would such a decision -- in other

2 words, that decisions made by the War Crisis Staff are to be strictly

3 respected --

4 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, it doesn't say War Crisis Staff, it

5 says War Staff.

6 MS. KORNER: All right.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: He is correct, Ms. Korner.

8 MS. KORNER: Quite. Some objections perhaps are more pertinent

9 than others.

10 Q. "By the War Staff of the Autonomous Region of Krajina are to be

11 strictly respected." How would such a decision be enforced?

12 A. The Crisis Staff adopted decisions and conclusions and issued

13 orders to economic agents and determined the process of work, the manner

14 of operating for each economic organisation. An economic organisation had

15 to provide a war plan of work, so to speak, and only after this had been

16 authorised by the Crisis Staff, in such a case the organisation was able

17 to continue with its operations. This meant reducing the number of those

18 employed, and directing production towards wartime objectives. When an

19 economic organisation was given the green light, the go ahead, for the

20 wartime plan for the process of production, then it was possible to

21 appoint, to management places and positions, only citizens of Serbian

22 nationality who were loyal to the Serbian Republic, as they called it in

23 Bosnia and Herzegovina, and they had to confirm that they were loyal by

24 responding to the mobilisation from 1991, which had been issued during the

25 war in Croatia. On that basis, and on the basis of these loyal people and

1 those who had been assigned to positions of responsibility, on this basis,

2 it was possible to implement the decisions of the Crisis Staff.

3 Q. As far as the work plans were concerned, you've said that it was

4 possible to appoint to management positions -- places and positions, only

5 citizens of Serbian nationality. What happened to those who were of

6 non-Serb nationality?

7 A. They would be dismissed from their jobs. They -- their employment

8 was terminated.

9 Q. The paragraph, the same paragraph, number 2, also refers to "Only

10 persons loyal to the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina may make

11 decisions on the implementation of the general mobilisation in public and

12 economic organisations." What would happen to Serb employees of companies

13 who were liable to be mobilised? And before you answer that question, I

14 should ask you so that we get it clear, between what ages were people --

15 were men liable for mobilisation?

16 A. Conscripts were all adults, up 60 years of age, I think.

17 And an adult according to our law is someone who is between the

18 age of 18 and 60.

19 Q. Now, if a Serb employee of a company was liable to mobilisation,

20 what would or could happen?

21 A. If the wartime plan of a certain economic organisation had been

22 authorised, if it had been given the go-ahead for the process of

23 production, and if it -- if this authorisation had been given by the

24 Crisis Staff, if such an employee or citizen of Serbian nationality was

25 necessary for the process of production in that organisation, he would

1 then be given a wartime assignment at his work and that would be his

2 mobilisation position. This was called a work duty. And if he was not

3 necessary for the process of production, he would be mobilised and given a

4 wartime assignment, I assume, at the front.

5 Q. Were non-Serb employees of the companies ever given this wartime

6 assignment at what was his place of work?

7 A. There were people, usually professionals for certain posts, and

8 they were of non-Serb nationality, and because of the process of

9 production, an assignment was authorised for them. That is to say, work

10 obligations were assigned to them, up until the moment when -- up until

11 such time as a Serbian person would appear and who was as qualified as he

12 was, and in such cases, he would replace him.

13 Q. Next, can I ask you to move, please, to conclusion number 7 or I

14 suppose item number 7, the 11th of May, 1992 document? The first item on

15 that conclusion refers to the "surrender of illegally acquired weapons"

16 and extends the deadline to the 14th of May, from the original deadline,

17 which -- I can't find now the part where -- but it says, "This deadline

18 expired today, the 11th of May, and has been extended at the request of

19 citizens of all nationalities. This decision was explained by the wish

20 of -- for the weapons to be returned in a peaceful manner and without

21 police intervention. After the deadline expires, weapons will be

22 confiscated by employees of the Security Services Centre of the Autonomous

23 Region of Krajina and severe sanctions will be imposed on those who ignore

24 the call of the Crisis Staff."

25 In your capacity on the executive board of the SDA, were you aware

1 of any request made for an extension of the deadline?

2 A. Yes. We were aware of the fact that the deadline for the

3 surrender of weapons had been extended.

4 Q. What I'm asking you is did anyone on the Bosniak -- of the Bosniak

5 representatives ask for an extension of a deadline, that you're aware of,

6 obviously?

7 A. No, none of the Bosniaks at any time asked for the deadline for

8 the surrender of weapons to be extended.

9 Q. Item number 5 on that same conclusion, in number 7, says, "All

10 work plans of Krajina enterprises must be analysed and approved by the

11 National Defence Council of the relevant municipality or by the War Staff

12 of the Autonomous Region of Krajina." Is that what you referred to in

13 your previous answer about the work plans that companies had to produce?

14 A. Yes. That's what I was thinking about, referring to.

15 Q. And finally, on this one, item number 6, "All able-bodied men aged

16 between 18 and 55 years, who have fled from the Autonomous Region of

17 Krajina must immediately return to their municipalities and help their

18 fellow citizens in the fight against the enemy. Ignoring the

19 above-mentioned calls shall result in a ban on the return of the said

20 individuals to their homes, that is, to the area of the Autonomous Region

21 of Krajina, and the confiscation of all their property, both moveable and

22 immovable."

23 Mr. Dzonlic, what effect did that decision have on non-Serbs

24 living in Banja Luka? Or who were no longer living in Banja Luka, I

25 should say, who had left?

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1 A. The non-Serbs who had left Banja Luka did not know of this

2 decision because they were not in Banja Luka, but this decision in a most

3 drastic way violated the basic human rights of every citizen because, on

4 the basis of this decision, they confiscated all the property of all

5 citizens who were not in the territory in question. They confiscated both

6 moveable and immovable property, and there were quite a few Serbs too who

7 had left this territory because they did not agree with what was

8 happening. However, it concerned everyone so the final fate, what finally

9 happened, was that all property was confiscated, all the property of a

10 person who had been amassing it throughout their life. In this way, such

11 a person was prevented from returning to the territory, which was

12 subjected to this decision.

13 Q. In your experience, before this decision, had such a law existed,

14 whereby property could be confiscated if a person didn't return?

15 A. No, no.

16 Q. All right. Can we move, then, please, to the conclusion, set of

17 conclusions numbered number 9, which in fact are dated the 13th of May?

18 Item number 2, "Dr. Vukic is to submit his report on the work of the

19 committee for standardising key staff at the Banja Luka clinical medical

20 centre within three days." What in your experience did "standardising key

21 staff" actually mean?

22 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I don't think he's shown that he has

23 any experience in knowing what "standardising key staff" means. If there

24 could be some foundation for that, that he has some special training that

25 let's him know what those words mean, if they are words of legal art or

1 something, that's fine.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Let him tell us whether he knows what "standardising

3 key staff" means.

4 MR. ACKERMAN: That's what I was asking for.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: I'm sure if he doesn't know what it means, he will

6 obviously be referring to the corresponding words in his own language, as

7 they appear in the government gazette, he's going to tell us, "I don't

8 know." So if he knows, I think the question by Ms. Korner is very

9 pertinent but obviously depends on whether the witness knows the answer to

10 that question or not.

11 So Mr. Dzonlic, obviously you have heard what Mr. Ackerman said.

12 You have heard what I remarked afterwards. Ms. Korner for the Prosecution

13 has asked you to comment on the words "standardising key staff," what they

14 mean in particular. If you are in a position to tell us what they mean,

15 if you have an idea at all of what was meant in that conclusion by

16 "standardising key staff" as they appear in your own language in the

17 B/C/S version of the government gazette, then tell us. If you're not in a

18 position to answer the question, there is no problem, just tell us, "I'm

19 not in a position to answer that question."

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I could answer that question.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: See, Mr. Ackerman.

22 MS. KORNER:

23 Q. Could you -- Mr. Dzonlic, could you tell us, then, please, what

24 was meant by that expression?

25 A. The Commission for the Standardisation of Staff, which was formed

1 in all economic organisations, was formed with the objective, the main

2 objective, of examining those who were employed within a certain period of

3 time. We should return to my answer to the previous two questions

4 perhaps. If a professional of non-Serbian nationality was given a wartime

5 assignment or preserved his job according to a wartime assignment because

6 there was no such person of Serbian nationality to occupy the post, then

7 the Commission after a certain period of time had to examine whether he

8 still met certain criteria that had been set by that Commission. They had

9 to see whether there was a Serbian citizen who would be able to adequately

10 replace a citizen of non-Serb nationality, and if this was determined by

11 the Commission, then the citizen of non-Serbian nationality would be

12 dismissed and would be replaced by a Serbian citizen.

13 The Commission also had, as a task, had the task of monitoring the

14 behaviour of such people, especially in hospitals, and as far as I can

15 see, the person in question here is Dr. Vukic, who worked in the clinical

16 centre, because wounded people would appear there, members of the Serbian

17 army, Serbian citizens, Serbian nationals, and the Commission was very

18 concerned about monitoring the work of all citizens who were of non-Serb

19 nationality.

20 Q. And Mr. Dzonlic, how did you find out about these committees?

21 A. Which committees are you referring to? Do you mean commissions?

22 Q. Commissions, I'm so sorry, commissions of standardisation of

23 staff.

24 A. There were a lot of doctors in Banja Luka who were Bosniaks, and

25 they would speak about what was happening, especially in the clinical

1 centre. My wife is also a doctor and I know this on that basis too.

2 Q. What actually happened to your wife? I'm sorry, I'll go back.

3 Where was your wife working? At the clinical centre?

4 A. My wife wasn't working in the clinical medical centre. She worked

5 in the health centre in Skender Vakuf. She was working in the emergency

6 ward. And one day, her director - and this happened during this period -

7 her director asked her to remain in the emergency service because she

8 found it appropriate to work in shifts, one day from the morning until the

9 evening, and the other day from the evening until the morning, and then

10 she would be free for three days and would then go home. However, the

11 director told her that the emergency service, that the ambulance service,

12 had to be ethnically clean and that she could not remain there because of

13 the people who were being brought in, because of the wounded soldiers, and

14 for this reason, she left her job of her own free will and handed in her

15 documents.

16 Q. Thank you. All right. Can we move, staying with the same

17 decision, number 9, to item number 4?" The security services in Banja

18 Luka is to fully implement the decisions of the Crisis Staff of the

19 Autonomous Region of Krajina on the disarming of illegal paramilitary

20 units and individuals who are in possession of weapons and ammunition."

21 Mr. Dzonlic, you've told us yesterday about the paramilitary groups you

22 saw in Banja Luka. Were you aware of any attempt to disarm those units?

23 A. Yesterday I spoke about paramilitary formations composed of

24 citizens of Serbian nationality, because I considered them to be

25 paramilitary formations as they weren't under the control of the

1 government of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. And as far as I can

2 understand this decision, it does not refer to these formations but to --

3 it refers to all citizens, and to some other paramilitary formations of

4 which I am not aware.

5 Q. Very well. Then finally, on this one, this conclusion, item

6 number 6, "The certificates issued by the Crisis Staff of the Autonomous

7 Region of Krajina to individuals who are moving out of the territory of

8 the autonomous region shall also be valued for their belongs, households

9 items, furniture, clothes and motor vehicles." You gave a very lengthy

10 description yesterday of the number of certificates that had to be

11 issued. Are these the certificates that this decision refers to, as far

12 as you can tell?

13 A. Yes. This does refer to those certificates.

14 Q. Yes. If we could now move, please --

15 MS. KORNER: Sorry, Your Honour. Yes, I got my pages out of order

16 for a moment.

17 Q. -- to conclusion number 12? And look, please, at item number 9,

18 which states, "Reciprocity" -- this is going to be a bit like

19 mobilisation -- "should be applied in the resettlement of the population

20 throughout the territory of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and

21 Herzegovina."

22 Now, does reciprocity, does that have a specific legal meaning,

23 Mr. Dzonlic?

24 A. Yes. The word "reciprocity" has a very significant legal meaning.

25 Q. And in this context, what do you understand this to mean?

1 A. In the context of this conclusion, for me, this means, in the

2 first place, that the Serb Republic of Bosnia and Hercegovina, had already

3 by then considered itself to be sovereign, a sovereign territory and an

4 international legal entity. According to the knowledge I have,

5 Reciprocity, the principle of reciprocity can be applicable on the basis

6 of international law only between sovereign and internationally legally

7 recognised entities.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. De Roux?

9 MR. DE ROUX: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I think now we are

10 hearing an opinion, a legal opinion, not testimony here. And I think that

11 what the witness thinks legally regarding the interpretation of the word

12 "reciprocity" appears to me to be pure opinion and far from the testimony

13 that we expect of him.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: I think, Ms. Korner, perhaps in a way, Mr. De Roux

15 is right.

16 You could perhaps rephrase the question, asking the witness what

17 he understands by -- in this paragraph 9, "Reciprocity should be applied

18 in the resettlement of the population," and we will leave it at that.

19 MS. KORNER: I was going to come to that, Your Honour. May I

20 point out that this gentleman is, in fact, a lawyer practising -- was a

21 lawyer practising in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Still is. And now he is legal adviser to the

23 secretary of the government.

24 MS. KORNER: Yes.

25 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, let me just say that he was not

1 represented by the Prosecution to be an expert witness. There is no

2 written report.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: No, no, no. He's not being considered as an expert

4 witness.

5 MR. ACKERMAN: So I would object to him being allowed to testify

6 as an expert witness, because otherwise the Prosecution would have had to

7 comply with the rules of this Tribunal regarding reports.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: He is not giving evidence as an expert witness.

9 Yes, Ms. Korner.

10 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, he's not giving evidence as an expert

11 witness. He's giving evidence as to the effect of these decisions and

12 what his understanding is.

13 Q. What, Mr. Dzonlic, in your -- was this decision -- what effect did

14 that have?

15 A. For us, this decision was absolutely unacceptable, and for us, it

16 represented the engineering of ethnic cleansing within Bosnia-Herzegovina.

17 Secondly, we never would have agreed to such a principle of

18 resettlement and moving out of peoples, because it is impossible within an

19 internationally recognised state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. And for us,

20 it was absolutely null and void. But it was a form of ethnic cleansing.

21 Q. And why do you say it was a form of ethnic cleansing? What was

22 the practical effect?

23 A. I couldn't say it would mean that within the territory of

24 Republika Srpska, that territory would be absolutely Serb. If, shall we

25 say, it had 1.000 Bosniaks, they would be resettled outside the territory

1 of Republika Srpska, and a thousand Serbs would move into the territory of

2 Republika Srpska. And that would be this process of complete ethnic

3 cleansing.

4 Q. Thank you. Then can we move, please, to --

5 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'm just checking on the statement,

6 whether I need to look at the next --

7 Q. Yes. Conclusion number 15, I'm sorry, dated the 22nd of May.

8 Item number 2, "All flats that have been empty for over 15 days are to be

9 taken over for housing the homeless." Before the Crisis Staff took over,

10 was there any such provision in the law allowing flats that had been empty

11 to be taken over?

12 A. The question of housing and housing rights was regulated by the

13 law on -- I can't remember quite now, just now, the full name of the law,

14 but I know that according to the law, the right to a dwelling may be

15 withdrawn if the dwelling is not being used for longer than six months.

16 If you're not living in your apartment without any justifiable cause for

17 longer than six months, then the person who granted you housing rights

18 could withdraw those rights, and not after 15 days, as it says in this

19 conclusion. The name of the law was the Law on Housing Relations.

20 Q. And as a matter of practicalities again, what sort of housing did

21 this law actually affect? In other words, to your knowledge, was housing

22 taken over?

23 A. Apartments were taken over en masse. All apartments which had

24 been abandoned by the people who left Banja Luka, all those apartments

25 were simultaneously taken over by Serbs, and very frequently even before

1 the tenants had left Banja Luka, they were evicted from their homes, and

2 only after that did they leave Banja Luka.

3 Q. Can we move, please, then, to number 17, item -- conclusion number

4 17, 26th of May? Item number 4 again deals with the standardisation of

5 key staff, this time in the municipalities. And then item number 6, "An

6 agency shall be established to work on the problem of population

7 resettlement." Do you know whether such an agency was established?

8 A. Yes. It is the agency I referred to earlier on, known in town as

9 Brdjanin's agency, and it was headed by Perka.

10 Q. All right. Yes. Could you move to conclusion number 23, the 29th

11 of May? Item number 1, "It has been decided that all Muslims and Croats

12 who so wish should be able to move out of the area of the Autonomous

13 Region of Krajina, but on condition that Serbs living outside the Serbian

14 autonomous districts and regions are allowed to move into the territories

15 of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Autonomous

16 Region of Krajina. In this manner, an exchange of population or more

17 precisely a resettlement of people from one part of the former Socialist

18 Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to another would be carried out in an

19 organised manner." And it goes on to talk about Muslims from Prijedor,

20 Sanski Most and Bosanski Novi and Serbs in Central Bosnia who wanted to

21 move but are not permitted by local authorities.

22 And then it goes on to say, "The crisis staff has invited the SDA

23 and the HDZ in Bosnia and Herzegovina to become actively involved in

24 facilitating a resettlement of the population."

25 Now, the first question, Mr. Dzonlic, is this what you were

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10

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12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

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15

16

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18

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24

25

1 referring to when we had the discussion about the conclusion that talked

2 about reciprocity?

3 A. Yes, yes.

4 Q. It says that the Crisis Staff had invited the SDA and the HDZ to

5 become involved. Do you recall any such request being made to your party

6 in Banja Luka?

7 A. Yes. I do recall. The Executive Board of the Banja Luka SDA

8 discussed this request at a meeting it held, and we reached a resolute

9 decision to oppose this method of resettlement and the engineering of

10 ethnic cleansing of peoples. I do know that that was also the position of

11 the official authorities, that is the HDZ party in Banja Luka, which also

12 opposed this way of resettling the population. And we came to the

13 conclusion that this should be published in the public media, to make it

14 clear to the people that we were not in favour of ethnic cleansing and the

15 organised resettlement of peoples.

16 Q. And were you able to publish this in the media?

17 A. I think that it was published, in the local newspapers. I think

18 it was published. But I do know for certain that we decided that it

19 should be published, and I think it was published in the local daily

20 newspaper, Glas.

21 Q. All right. And then finally, on this set of documents, could you

22 go to conclusion number 26, Article 3. It's the 3rd of June meeting

23 apparently. "Natural persons leaving the Autonomous Region of Krajina may

24 take out a maximum of 300 Deutschmarks or corresponding amounts in other

25 currencies which may not exceed this limit." You've told us yesterday,

1 Mr. Dzonlic, about the limitations. How was this -- in your experience,

2 how was the -- this particular decree or article enforced, namely that no

3 one was allowed to take more than 300 Deutschmarks?

4 A. I said earlier on that Bosniaks of Banja Luka were economically

5 independent and relatively well-off people. We knew of this limit of 300

6 Deutschmarks that could be taken out, but I also knew that people take --

7 took with them more than that, if they had it, and they hid the money in

8 various ways. They concealed the funds they were taking with them. But

9 there were quite a number of people who didn't have such means because

10 they had been confiscated from them, either by force while they were still

11 in Banja Luka, or they had spent it on all the certificates that I listed

12 a moment ago in order to be given the document allowing their

13 resettlement.

14 MS. KORNER: Thank you. Yes. That's all I have on that document.

15 Can I ask that that be taken away from you and that you be given exhibit

16 which has been numbered P258? It is in the binder volume 2 of the Banja

17 Luka documents. And it had a disclosure number of 3.70. It's the second

18 set of the Official Gazette.

19 Q. Could you look, please, at number -- it's in slightly different

20 format, this apparently, at number 32. Actually I'm sorry, could we just

21 for a moment go to number 30? The first decision, 29, is signed by the

22 president of the Crisis Staff, Radoslav Brdjanin. The next decision or

23 article is signed by the president of the executive council, apparently,

24 Nikola Erceg. You explained to us that the function of the executive

25 council and that of the Crisis Staff yesterday. That decision apparently

1 refers to an article in respect of sales tax and that like. What would be

2 the reason, in your view, your knowledge, of Mr. Erceg as opposed to Mr.

3 Brdjanin signing this decision?

4 A. I said yesterday that the executive council was actually equal to

5 the government, and that it takes technical and operational decisions,

6 implementing the policies and conclusions adopted at the level of the

7 Crisis Staff. The executive council enforces those decisions. And that

8 is why this decision was signed by the president of the executive council

9 and not the president of the Crisis Staff.

10 Q. Yes. Thank you. All right. Could we go on, then, please, to

11 number 32? Which talks about a decision on the establishment of the

12 Krajina Emigration Society and the next decision, number 33, also the

13 9th of June, saying that Zoran Malesevic was to be the Coordinator. Did

14 you ever hear about something called the Krajina Emigration Society?

15 A. No, I hear of it for the first time now.

16 Q. Could we go, then, please to number 35? Decision number 1?

17 "Landlords who have rented or are renting out flats or parts of flats

18 which are either the property of physical persons or are social property

19 to tenants who are in the theatre of operations and under the command of

20 the JNA, Yugoslav People's Republic and the army of the Serbian Republic

21 of Bosnia and Herzegovina may not give the tenants and their families

22 notice while they are still in the theatre of operations."

23 First of all, can you just explain to us what is the difference

24 between the property of physical persons or are social property?

25 A. A physical person may have had a privately owned house that he

1 lived in and that was his house. He could also have bought an apartment

2 in an apartment building and he could have been the owner of an apartment,

3 as opposed to a socially owned apartment in which a physical person enjoys

4 only the status of a tenant and he is not the owner of the apartment, but

5 he may use it and dispose of it for the purpose of dwelling in it, and he

6 may also subrent it. According to the law, he may rent only a part of the

7 apartment, not the whole apartment. If he were to rent out the whole

8 apartment, that would be a legal basis for his right to tenancy to be

9 withdrawn from him. So he could have rented out a room with the right of

10 the tenant to use the kitchen and the bathroom.

11 Q. How much of property in Banja Luka, in June of 1992, was privately

12 owned, roughly? I appreciate you can't give an exact figure.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: If you know it, tell us, if you don't just say so.

14 MS. KORNER:

15 Q. Yes.

16 A. All houses were privately owned. As for flats or apartments, the

17 majority were socially owned. Maybe only 10 per cent of the total housing

18 was privately owned and 90 per cent was socially owned.

19 Q. All right. So if we understand this correctly, this decision was

20 saying that people who were serving either under the command of the JNA or

21 the army of the Serbian Republic, the VRS, could not be given notice at

22 all?

23 A. Yes, yes.

24 Q. Were you aware of the presence of the JNA as opposed to the VRS,

25 Bosnian Serb Army, in Banja Luka?

1 A. I was never absolutely certain about that, but I thought that

2 there were members of the JNA present to distinguish them from members of

3 the VRS because JNA members differed in terms of the uniforms they wore,

4 and their uniform slightly differed from those of members of the Serbian

5 army. So I assumed that they were members of the JNA, though I never knew

6 that officially.

7 Q. Just very briefly perhaps before the break, what was the

8 difference that you could see between the uniforms of the two?

9 A. It was of better quality, shall I put it that way, the uniforms

10 worn by JNA members, in terms of the material. It was more elegant, and

11 they were always neat and properly clothed, like real soldiers. It was

12 well ironed. And as I had served in the former JNA, I knew that the

13 officers were always neat and orderly, like proper soldiers, as opposed to

14 members of the Army of Republika Srpska, who were not so well dressed as

15 these were.

16 MS. KORNER: Yes. Thank you. Your Honour, I only have one more

17 item on this particular set of documents so whether Your Honour would wish

18 me to deal with it now or after the break?

19 JUDGE AGIUS: You mean, you're referring to the next document,

20 P295?

21 MS. KORNER: No, on this particular set of documents I'm just

22 going to deal with one more conclusion.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, please go ahead, unless there is an objection

24 from the interpreters.

25 THE INTERPRETER: No, Your Honour, no objection.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: So we go ahead and then we break immediately

2 afterwards.

3 MS. KORNER:

4 Q. Could you go to item number 45 or conclusion number 45 in the same

5 documents? A meeting on the 19th of June. Number 1, "The proper

6 municipal organs of administration shall be informed of all abandoned

7 property, which shall then be proclaimed property of the state and placed

8 at the disposal of the municipal assemblies." In practical terms, Mr.

9 Dzonlic, what effect did that decision have?

10 A. The effects were similar as of the previous decision. The

11 confiscation of all the property of citizens who were not within the

12 territory of the region. So this decision also meant that all property

13 which was privately owned should be proclaimed by decree state-owned

14 property and placed at the disposal of the municipality, which meant a

15 violation of a basic human right, the right to property, the right to

16 personal, private property.

17 Q. Before this, was there any provision in Bosnian law for such a --

18 let's see the word they used -- "removal" of property?

19 A. I am not aware of the existence of any such provisions, providing

20 for this way of confiscating property.

21 MS. KORNER: Yes. Thank you.

22 Your Honour, that's all I will ask on this document.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, Ms. Korner. We will have a break until

24 11.00. Thank you.

25 --- Recess taken at 10.31 a.m.

1 --- On resuming at 11.10 a.m.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Please be seated. Yes, Mr. Ackerman?

3 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honours, I want to apologise for the delay

4 that I caused.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: It's no problem but I think once this matter has

6 been brought up, let me make myself clear. The most part of these

7 proceedings are public but there are moments when we go in closed session,

8 and you will immediately understand the preoccupation of this Trial

9 Chamber if at any moment while we are in closed session a -- there are

10 mobile phones around in the courtroom. Please don't put me in a position,

11 put us in a position, where we have to question or take steps or

12 whatever. It's a gentlemen's and gentlelady's agreement that this

13 certainly will not happen. I mean I know what use can be made of mobile

14 phones and I hope we will not have to intervene. This is all I wanted to

15 say. So it's -- I think -- I don't need to explain any further.

16 MR. ACKERMAN: Its presence here was almost totally inadvertent.

17 I almost always lock it in my locker. I just happened to forget this

18 morning.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you. Ms. Korner?

20 MR. ACKERMAN: I forgot several things this morning, Your Honour.

21 The other thing I forgot this morning was my cross-examination notes which

22 are still sitting in my printer at home, but that's okay. I can deal fine

23 without them. I think for a while at least.

24 The other thing that I need to report to you was that I think we

25 have completed the work on the proposed calendar. I think all three

1 parties have now agreed and that it is -- I think it's been provided to

2 the Registry and it's now in your hands, Your Honours.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Not yet, but almost. It's only about ten feet away.

4 Yes, Ms. Korner?

5 MS. KORNER: I think I ought to admit that in Court in another

6 jurisdiction my mobile phone actually went off in the middle of

7 cross-examination. I think it's a problem common to everyone.

8 Your Honour, may I just mention before Mr. Dzonlic comes back in

9 that the -- I've been discussing with Mr. Ackerman the question of this

10 newspaper article again because it's necessary for me to notify counsel

11 instructed by the journalist, and can I digress for a moment? We had a

12 call from what's called the Public Information Office here about this

13 matter. It's perhaps my fault for mentioning the name of the journalist

14 in court yesterday. I declined to give very much information because this

15 matter is still pending but it might help if perhaps Your Honour were to

16 say -- I don't know whether Your Honours have the power to do this -- but

17 that until this matter is resolved, there should be no press publication

18 at the moment. I'm not sure. In my jurisdiction the judges do have a

19 power to prevent --

20 JUDGE AGIUS: There is also usually a provision in the law

21 providing for that.

22 MS. KORNER: Yes.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Which I don't think there is in this Tribunal.

24 MS. KORNER: Well, Your Honour, it may be that I can leave that

25 for the moment. I was somewhat concerned because clearly at the moment

1 this is still a matter that's under discussion in these proceedings, even

2 though it's been done in open court. But there is a matter of law that

3 Mr. Ackerman wishes to raise in respect of the admission, at all, of any

4 of the articles. I wonder if it would be possible to do it, we remain in

5 Your Honour's hands, either at the end of today, in other words

6 disposing -- allowing Mr. Dzonlic to leave earlier, or first thing

7 tomorrow morning?

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Whatever you prefer. I think our first duty is to

9 make sure that Mr. Dzonlic finishes his testimony as early as possible so

10 that he may return to where he came from, and today is already Thursday so

11 I don't know what to expect by way of cross-examination, but I don't

12 anticipate from -- I'm not anticipating your cross-examination to finish,

13 both of you, by the end of tomorrow's session, no?

14 MR. ACKERMAN: No, I'm quite certain he'll be here on Monday just

15 judging by the length of the direct and the amount of material that needs

16 to be covered.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: That makes it more or less irrelevant whether we

18 deal with this procedural, legal issue at the end of today's sitting or

19 tomorrow morning, depending on whether the examination-in-chief finishes

20 today.

21 MR. ACKERMAN: Let me suggest that we try to deal with it at

22 1.30. That would solve a couple of problems for me.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Provided Ms. Korner can terminate her

24 examination-in-chief by that.

25 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I anticipate finishing before the next

1 break.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. I think that would be ideal then. Do you

3 think we can deal with it in a quarter of an hour?

4 MR. ACKERMAN: I think so. I think it's pretty straightforward

5 and nothing very complicated.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.

7 MS. KORNER: And, Your Honour, may I just correct one thing that

8 was brought to my attention in the break that I said this morning? Your

9 Honour, the humanitarian organisation wishes to, before it grants its

10 final permission, just to look at the terms of Your Honour's ruling and so

11 I understand that this cannot be done because of the time gap until this

12 afternoon so it will be tomorrow morning, that disclosure.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you.

14 So I think we can bring in the witness.

15 Yes, Ms. Korner, you may proceed.

16 MS. KORNER: Yes.

17 Q. Mr. Dzonlic, I'd like you now to be given, please, the next set of

18 Official Gazettes, which are P295, disclosure number 3.71, the first

19 document in volume 3 of the Banja Luka documents. And could you look,

20 please, first at number 51, which is -- refers to a meeting of the

21 executive council this time on the 30th of June, 1992? Conclusion number

22 1, "The government shall guarantee all the rights of individuals who have

23 proved their patriotism in these difficult times regardless of their

24 religion or nationality."

25 Mr. Dzonlic, were in your experience, the rights of all

1 individuals regardless of their religion or nationality guaranteed by the

2 government?

3 A. No, they weren't.

4 Q. What is your understanding of the words "proved their

5 patriotism"? How were nationalities, in your experience, to prove their

6 patriotism?

7 A. People expressed their patriotism in specific cases by responding

8 to the call-up to join the army of the -- Serbian Republic of

9 Bosnia-Herzegovina and first of all to defend their state as they called

10 it and secondly, by showing loyalty, by showing their patriotism by

11 responding to the Serbian plebiscite, and to all the mobilisations that

12 had been implemented. But the main thing was for someone to have

13 responded, to have responded to the call-up to join the Army of Republika

14 Srpska. In such cases they would consider such a person to be a patriot.

15 Q. Did you ever become aware of any so-called loyalty oath that had

16 to be taken to the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina?

17 A. Yes, I was aware of this.

18 Q. Who was required to take such a loyalty oath?

19 A. I know that such an oath had to be taken by members of the police

20 who worked in the state security service, the state security centre in

21 Banja Luka. All those who were employed had to take an oath of loyalty,

22 and those who didn't lost his right to work, and I know that there were

23 several Bosniaks who took this oath of loyalty, who signed a pledge of

24 loyalty.

25 Q. Did that enable them to remain within the security services, the

1 state security services?

2 A. For a short period of time, they remained there, but in the end,

3 they remained without work too, regardless of the fact that they had

4 signed a pledge of loyalty.

5 Q. Can I now take you, please, to the decision number 62, please?

6 It's not the content of the decision that's of any relevance but it's

7 signed on this occasion. It's dated the 17th of July, 1992. It's signed

8 by the president of the Assembly of the Autonomous Region of Krajina, Vojo

9 Kupresanin. Now, you told us yesterday that you'd heard the name

10 Kupresanin but you weren't sure of his position. Were you aware on the

11 17th of July that the assembly of the autonomous region had recommenced

12 sitting?

13 A. No, I wasn't aware of this fact.

14 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, may I just digress for a moment and it's

15 purely so Your Honour can see the connections? In one of the earlier

16 decisions we looked at, there was -- which I didn't draw Your Honour's

17 attention to, a passage that said the decisions of the Autonomous Region

18 Crisis Staff must be submitted to the assembly for ratification. Your

19 Honour there is a document which we haven't looked at yet and I'm not

20 going to ask Your Honours to look it at the moment. It's disclosure

21 number 2.275. It's actually in volume 2, dated the 17th of July. Your

22 Honours have admitted it as P -- if I can find it -- P43. So I think it

23 must have been one of the ones that Dr. Donia looked at - I see Ms. Gustin

24 nodding - which shows the assembly reassembling and the ratification of

25 the ARK Crisis Staff decisions -- I should say verification, is the way

1 it's put.

2 Q. Now, can I ask you to look finally on this document, please, at

3 item number 66, or decision number 66, the 24th of July? Again this time

4 it's the executive council and it's actually signed by somebody called the

5 secretary of the Secretariat for Education, Science, Culture and Physical

6 Culture, Zlatko Kolecevic, decision 1, "Full-time and part-time students

7 who have not fully complied with the provisions of the law of the Serbian

8 Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina on total national defence may not

9 enrol in two-year colleges and institutes of university education."

10 What in practical terms, was the effect of that decision,

11 Mr. Dzonlic?

12 A. Before answering this question, I would like to say that the

13 person in question is Zlatko Kolecevic because I know this -- the person

14 named. He worked as a professor in the secondary school in Banja Luka. In

15 practical terms, this decision meant that most of the Bosniaks, the

16 absolute majority of the Bosniaks and Croats weren't able to continue with

17 their education because they did not respond to the mobilisation and in

18 this manner, they were denied their right to education.

19 Q. So the law on total national defence referred to mobilisation? Is

20 that what you're saying?

21 A. That's correct.

22 Q. All right. That's all I want to ask you about that document.

23 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, the next document is not in the

24 binders. It was referred to in his statement and we are going to hand out

25 copies. Your Honours has been given them. They are disclosure -- they

1 were attached to the witness statement and it's the Banja Luka -- the

2 Official Gazette of the Banja Luka municipality, issue number 9. We

3 understand we gave them to the Registry the other day.

4 THE REGISTRAR: What's the number?

5 MS. KORNER: That's for the witness.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: Does it have an exhibit number at this point,

7 Ms. Korner?

8 MS. KORNER: No, I'm going to ask that it be made Exhibit P470.

9 Q. Now, Mr. Dzonlic, you had a chance to look at this when you made

10 your second statement. This is the Official Gazette of the municipality

11 of Banja Luka. Can you explain the difference between this gazette and

12 the ones we've been looking at?

13 A. This Official Gazette, as the title itself says, is the Official

14 Gazette of the municipality of Banja Luka, of the organs of the Assembly,

15 the Municipal Assembly of Banja Luka, the legal organs of power of the

16 Municipal Assembly of Banja Luka. This assembly is a legal organ of

17 power. And this is the gazette of a legal organ of power which refers to

18 the -- which concerns the territory of the municipality of Banja Luka.

19 Q. What's the difference between the type of decisions taken by the

20 ones we looked at earlier, the Autonomous Region of Krajina, either Crisis

21 Staff or Regional Assembly, and these taken by the municipality assembly?

22 In other words, what's the division between the levels of authority?

23 A. According to my opinion, the decisions taken by the Crisis Staff

24 were binding for the legal organs of power too, and thus for the Municipal

25 Assembly of Banja Luka. And in accordance with the decisions taken by the

1 Crisis Staff, the municipal assembly had to adopt the decisions of the

2 Crisis Staff and legally implement them in every day life. And for this

3 reason, the municipal assembly adopted such decisions, decisions such as

4 the ones that are published in the Official Gazette.

5 Q. In your view -- having been there -- and having looked?

6 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment. Maitre de Roux, yes, please.

7 MR. DE ROUX: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I would like to raise

8 the same objection as I made earlier on. In this case again, we are

9 dealing with opinions that we are asking of the witness with regard to the

10 way that he interprets the text. This witness is not an expert witness.

11 He has to give testimony with regard to facts. And we are asking him for

12 legal opinions, and for this reason, I object.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Ms. Korner, what do you have to say?

14 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'm not asking him for a legal opinion.

15 I'm asking him from his own practical experience, living in the

16 municipality, as a lawyer, what the difference was between the decisions

17 taken by the Crisis Staff of the region and the municipality Crisis Staff

18 or assembly.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. I think Maitre de Roux, I think I have to

20 allow him to answer that question, because he is not being asked the

21 question as an expert witness. Please do remember that he was at the time

22 already a lawyer, he was also a functionary, a higher officer, official of

23 the SDA, and therefore this type of question being directed to him is

24 perfectly legitimate and if he is in a position to answer it, he can

25 answer it. It may well end up being his own personal interpretation of

1 the significance of whatever is being asked from him, but it is certainly

2 not being asked and forthcoming as or by way of an expert witness. I

3 mean, he's just another witness who happens to be a lawyer, and he is not

4 being -- in other words, the Trial Chamber is not taking his evidence as

5 expert witness. It's just his personal, legal interpretation of the

6 circumstances or, in this particular case, the -- he is explaining what he

7 understood to be the difference between the municipality of Banja Luka

8 decision-making process and the -- in the application or executing of the

9 decisions of the ARK crisis. So I think I can, without any difficulty,

10 allow it. Thank you. You may proceed.

11 MR. DE ROUX: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

12 MS. KORNER:

13 Q. Mr. Dzonlic, I want to make this absolutely clear. From your

14 experience as a citizen of Banja Luka, and having looked at the various

15 documents, including the two gazettes, what decisions had more effect on

16 the daily life in Banja Luka, those taken by the municipality, Predrag

17 Radic, or those taken by the Crisis Staff or the assembly headed by

18 Mr. Brdjanin or the Crisis Staff?

19 A. The decisions taken by the Crisis Staff had a greater impact

20 because they were in the form of orders, as compared to those taken by the

21 Municipal Assembly of Banja Luka. That assembly necessarily had to make

22 certain decisions such as this one in the Official Gazette because once

23 the Crisis Staff established a certain strategy, then it would make the

24 decision that the legal authorities should implement those decisions,

25 because, according to the laws, the positive regulations in force at the

1 time, the municipal assembly had a great deal of authority regarding

2 decision-making so that the Crisis Staff made it binding upon the

3 municipal assembly to implement the decisions and thereby achieve the

4 goals of the Crisis Staff.

5 Q. We've looked at and you've explained a number of effects of the

6 decisions taken by the Crisis Staff. We haven't gone through everything

7 but from what you saw in your examination of the papers, were those

8 decisions practically put into effect in Banja Luka?

9 A. Well, we have seen that most of those decisions were put into

10 effect. We've covered quite a number of decisions of the Crisis Staff now

11 which affected life in Banja Luka and all of this was implemented.

12 Q. Thank you. I just want to look at one or two matters that were

13 dealt with by the municipality of Banja Luka. Could we look, please, at

14 decision number 213? This is a decision, Article 1, relates to new

15 names. It's dated the 16th of July and it's signed at the end by

16 Predrag Radic, leader of the municipal council. New names, it says, have

17 been determined for the following streets, and it gives a list. What was

18 happening here, Mr. Dzonlic?

19 A. At the time, there was a campaign on that Serbs believed, and I

20 said that at the beginning, they would even say that we were breathing

21 Serbian air, that even the air was Serbian. The Serbs took the decision

22 to change the names of all streets, not just streets but also of schools

23 and all other institutions, which historically speaking were not in line

24 with their current policies. So that in article one of decision 213, they

25 changed the name of the main street, Marsal Tito Street and Marsal Tito

1 was a positive figure in the former Yugoslavia, they changed it to King

2 Peter Karadjordjevic 1st Street, Kralj Petar Karadjordjevic. And this

3 happened to all street names. The aim being, Serbifying all of them and

4 eliminating all traces of positive history in the territory of the former

5 Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia.

6 Q. Next can we look at, please, decision number 216? Which was dated

7 7th of July? No, I'm sorry. It was a date -- yes. We -- if we read

8 that, "In accordance with Article 240 of the statute of the municipality

9 of Banja Luka Official Gazette, and Article 6 of the decision on the

10 organisation and operation of the municipal council and its offices, and

11 other offices of local government in the circumstances of war or imminent

12 threat of war," and can we just pause there for a moment? You told us

13 yesterday, I believe, or maybe the day before, that a Crisis Staff came or

14 War Staff came into existence prior to this period, 1992, in an emergency

15 situation. Had you heard the expression in circumstances of war or

16 imminent threat of war before?

17 A. No, only in emergency situations, but not the threat of war. In

18 emergencies, and those emergencies were in fact listed, natural disasters,

19 fires, floods, earthquakes, and the like.

20 Q. Very well. Now, this is a decision on restrictions of playing of

21 music in outdoor places and bars and so on and so forth. On the face of

22 it, it looks like a noise restriction decision. In practical terms, what

23 was the effect of this, Mr. Dzonlic?

24 A. In this way, human rights were being violated on the one hand, and

25 on the other, there was a great deal of fear among people who had their

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1 own businesses, because, as a result of this decision, the police would

2 enter those businesses on the grounds of this decision, and they would

3 mistreat people simply because, allegedly, music was being played. On the

4 other hand, in this way, they wanted to raise the morale among the people,

5 to give the impression that there was no loud music and that there was law

6 and order in town.

7 Q. Yes. Thank you. If we can move, now, to decision number 217,

8 which refers to a decision that Article 1, taxation, "Persons working

9 abroad shall pay 100 Deutschmarks or the same amount in dinars towards

10 their taxes and the money raised through this tax is intended for the

11 Defence of the Autonomous Region of Krajina." When you looked at this,

12 could you see any connection with any of the decisions taken by the ARK

13 Crisis Staff?

14 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, I'm afraid I'm going to ask you to have

15 back the first set of Official Gazettes. I've forgotten the exhibit

16 number again. 227.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: 227, yes.

18 MS. KORNER: And if one goes to conclusion number 14, item number

19 5.

20 Q. Mr. Dzonlic, I'm sorry, I interrupted you to address Their

21 Honours. Were you able to see the connection there between a decision of

22 the Crisis Staff and this decision?

23 A. As far as I'm able to remember just now, there is a decision of

24 the Crisis Staff on taxation and method of payment of taxation, and that

25 the municipalities were charged to implement that decision. And the

1 Municipal Assembly of Banja Luka passed such a decision in accordance with

2 the previously issued decision of the Crisis Staff on the method of

3 payment of taxation. And that is how I see the link between the Crisis

4 Staff and the Municipal Assembly of Banja Luka.

5 Q. Yes. Thank you.

6 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, that's all I ask about that document,

7 and then finally, I would like Mr. Dzonlic to look at one last document.

8 Your Honours, again this was attached to his statement. It's attachment

9 number 13. I think Your Honours were given -- should have been given --

10 it's marked P471.

11 Q. Now, Mr. Dzonlic, this is an announcement to the media from the

12 Serbian Democratic Party, the Banja Luka Municipal Board and it's signed

13 as we can see, by the president, Dr. Vukic, dated the 23rd of October,

14 1991, and it talks about the postponement of a rally to the 26th of

15 October, 1991. Do you remember that rally?

16 A. Yes, I do.

17 Q. Did you see it?

18 A. No. I did not attend the meeting -- rally, but it was covered by

19 the media quiet extensively and we were able to follow on the radio and on

20 our TV screens.

21 Q. What do you remember about that particular rally?

22 A. I remember that it was attended by a large number of people. It

23 is a large square in front of the department store, called Boska, in Banja

24 Luka. I remember that there were quite a number of Serbian flags. I

25 remember that some people climbed on to the nearby Palace Hotel, a part of

1 which was still under construction so people climbed up and waved Serbian

2 flags from the building. I remember that there were cries that this was

3 Serbia, there were speeches held by individuals like Predrag Radic. I

4 remember him speaking. And I assume that these others also spoke. And

5 they said that this was part of Serbia and part of Yugoslavia, and that it

6 will -- it would always remain that.

7 Q. What effect did that have on you watching this rally?

8 A. I knew that things could not be the way they put it, because

9 already then the former SFRY no longer existed. Slovenia and Croatia had

10 become independent states. And I know that a referendum was being

11 prepared on the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and according to

12 my estimate, I knew that the majority of the people would opt for the

13 independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I assumed that a war could

14 break out. Of course, I never imagined that it would take the course that

15 it did afterwards.

16 Q. All right. Yes. Thank you. Mr. Dzonlic, that's all I want to

17 ask you about the documents. And I just have a couple of other topics to

18 deal with.

19 You told us that you left Banja Luka in February of 1993. Before

20 you left in February, 1993, did you ever receive any form of ill treatment

21 or harassment personally from the authorities in Banja Luka?

22 A. Yes. And on several occasions.

23 Q. And what form, first of all, ill-treatment, what form did that

24 take?

25 A. The first time this was, I think, between -- between five and

1 seven soldiers entered the apartment of my father in Djure Djakovica

2 Street in Banja Luka where I was living. They forced their way in. My

3 father was inside, my mother, my wife, and myself. They separated us into

4 the different rooms. My father in the living-room. My mother to one

5 room. Me in a second room. And my wife in the dining-room. And they

6 cross-examined us and searched the apartment and they asked for my

7 brother. At the time, my brother was at the Manjaca camp. They turned

8 everything upside down in the apartment. On the balcony we had a sack of

9 flour which they emptied out thinking that perhaps we were hiding

10 something inside. They behaved rudely. They didn't beat us but they were

11 very rude. And that was the first time. And it is difficult for me to

12 say exactly when it happened, but I know that it was sometime between the

13 6th and 9th month of 1992.

14 The next time, the civilian police came to the apartment. Inside,

15 my wife and I were inside. And they said that I had to go with them. I

16 did so. I started getting dressed. And just then my mother and father

17 were at our neighbour's and by the time we got ready, when my mother and

18 father came back, they found us preparing to leave. I asked that my

19 father go with us. They agreed to that and said that they were taking me

20 to the Military Secretariat. We got into a police car. I was immediately

21 suspicious, seeing the civilian police car taking me to the Military

22 Secretariat, so I thought this strange. My father and I got in at the --

23 on the back seat and they didn't drive us towards the military secretariat

24 but in the direction of the Laos district which is in the opposite

25 direction. So at the time I thought that they were going to kill us

1 because they were driving in the opposite direction. However, they told

2 us that they had to go in that direction because of an incident that had

3 occurred, and indeed an incident had occurred. A man was beating a woman

4 and when they had dealt with it, they drove us back to the Secretariat.

5 There, I was interrogated. They told me that they had called me

6 in allegedly because of a military uniform that I had been issued as a

7 former member, as actually somebody who had served in the army of the

8 former SFRY, and upon completing military service I was issued a uniform.

9 But as I have already said, I had returned that uniform through my

10 father. And then they let me go a couple of hours later.

11 Then it happened once more. I don't know whether it was two or

12 three of them that came to the apartment. And they took that certificate.

13 MR. ACKERMAN: Excuse me. I wonder if that could be put in a time

14 frame because we need to know whether we are in the confines of the

15 indictment or not.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. At the first instance he said sixth to ninth

17 month of 1992.

18 MR. ACKERMAN: The other one we don't know.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Could you, Mr. Dzonlic, pinpoint more or less the

20 second incident when you were taken to the military station, when that

21 happened?

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This second incident may have

23 occurred in the month of October, 1992, the tenth month, October or

24 November. I really cannot state explicitly whether it was, but as far as

25 I can remember, it was October or November.

1 And the last time they came to the apartment, whether it was two

2 or three policemen, I'm not sure, they were -- they treated us roughly.

3 One of them even kicked me. And then they took from me this certificate,

4 this permission to leave.

5 MR. ACKERMAN: [Previous translation continues] ... time was this

6 that this happened and he's telling us what happened on that incident

7 rather than when it happened. I think we need to know when it happened

8 before he goes forward with what happened.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: [Microphone not activated]

10 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, Your Honour, please. Microphone,

11 Your Honour.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: The witness has heard you already state the reasons

13 why you are asking for a reference to the time span or the date, if it is

14 at all possibility to pinpoint that, the reason being we have to know

15 whether it falls within the time span of the indictment. But I see no

16 difficulty at all in letting him finish the answer first and he will tell

17 us the date afterwards. As soon as he finishes.

18 MS. KORNER: Can I --

19 Q. Mr. Dzonlic, can you just tell us when the last visit was, before

20 Mr. Ackerman objects again?

21 A. This third time that they came, I think happened at the end of

22 1992 or the beginning of 1993. It may have been in January, 1993.

23 Q. You left Banja Luka on the 26th of February, 1993. Can you

24 remember roughly how long before your leaving this third visit by the

25 police was?

1 A. Perhaps a month prior to that, maybe -- maybe a month before, this

2 third incident therefore was in January. So maybe a month prior to my

3 leaving. Maybe around the 20th of January, as I left on the 26th, then it

4 could have been the 25th of January, but I can't remember the exact date.

5 I think it was sometime within that period. At the end of January.

6 Q. All right. In any event, Mr. Dzonlic, I was about to stop you.

7 You had these three visits by the police. At any stage during those

8 visits, were you ever -- you've mentioned being kicked, but ever really

9 physically beaten up by the police officers, whether military or civilian?

10 A. No. They didn't beat me. They didn't beat me.

11 Q. Now, you've spoken about all the restrictions that took place in

12 Banja Luka and the dismissals and the like. You've told us also that you

13 heard about what happened in Prijedor and other places. In your

14 experience, living in Banja Luka during this period of 1992 until you left

15 in February, 1993, can you see an explanation for why what happened in

16 other municipalities did not happen in Banja Luka?

17 A. I have some explanation, some experience, that might explain why

18 the same thing didn't happen in Banja Luka, the same thing as what

19 happened in the immediate vicinity of Banja Luka did not happen in Banja

20 Luka.

21 Q. Can you tell us what that is?

22 A. First of all, Banja Luka is a fairly large town. It's the

23 headquarters of the whole area. There were representatives in Banja Luka

24 and there were headquarters there, the headquarters of the International

25 Red Cross, and the UNHCR had its headquarters there, as well as the

1 monitors of the European Union. And as a result, the Serbs were not able

2 to do what they did in certain other towns.

3 Secondly, in my opinion, this organised and developed plan of

4 ethnic cleansing was made, having taken Banja Luka as an example. The

5 Serbs did not need to commit terrible crimes and killings in Banja Luka

6 because they organised on a weekly basis, every week, the deportation, the

7 expulsion, of the non-Serbian population from Banja Luka. And in this

8 manner, they gradually and quietly cleansed the city, and as a result,

9 they did not need to do what they did in Prijedor and Kozarac and in other

10 places. Similarly, I think that the Serbs felt that they were far more

11 powerful, especially in Banja Luka, because Banja Luka is or Banja Luka

12 was the logistics base of the former JNA and of the Serbs in Banja Luka,

13 because, as far as I know, there were about ten large military barracks

14 there.

15 And another reason, Banja Luka is a very particular city because

16 the non-Serbian population, at least as far as the Bosniaks are concerned,

17 they all lived in the city. All the surrounding villages were Serbian

18 villages. So that in that respect, they were quite sure that the Bosniaks

19 in Banja Luka would not be able to put up any kind of resistance in the

20 event of conflict. And I think that in this way they wanted to show the

21 international community and the world that what was said was being done

22 was not correct and they wanted to provide Banja Luka as an example. They

23 wanted to provide Banja Luka as an example of the possibility of peaceful

24 co-existence. And I think that this is the reason for which they didn't

25 do the same things that they did in other cities.

1 Q. Thank you, Mr. Dzonlic. Finally, you left on the 26th of

2 February, 1993. Were you able to leave openly?

3 A. No, I wasn't able to leave openly. After people -- other people,

4 after the procedure, were able to leave with a permit, but as I said

5 earlier on, this permit was taken from me, and I was not able to leave in

6 this way. I was not able to leave Banja Luka in this way. And I think it

7 is important to mention this too. When my permit to leave was taken away,

8 my wife and I went to the Secretariat for National Defence in the

9 municipality of Banja Luka. We went to see the secretary, whose name was

10 Denic. We said we would be coming and we asked to be received by him. We

11 waited for quite a long time before he saw us. My wife asked Mr. Denic

12 why my permit to leave Banja Luka had been taken away. He said, "Madam,

13 it's a war. You should be happy that you are alive. I have been

14 ordered -- I have been given orders not to let him leave Banja Luka."

15 When I heard this, I said, "Thank you." And I told my wife that we should

16 leave. And we left. So I was not able to, in inverted commas, leave

17 legally, but I managed to leave in a very strange way. I managed to

18 leave.

19 Q. I don't think you did tell us earlier, although I'll be corrected

20 if I'm wrong, when was your -- the permit you'd obtained to leave removed

21 from you?

22 A. They took my permit from me, I'm not sure whether it was in

23 January or towards the end of 1992. I can't be precise about this, about

24 when the police came, police in civilian clothing, they came into my

25 house. They took that permit from me and they said that I had to give

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1 them this permit for departure. I'm not sure whether it was at the end of

2 1992 or at the beginning of 1993, but I think it was during this period.

3 Q. All right. Well, then, very shortly, Mr. Dzonlic, how did you

4 actually leave Banja Luka? You can tell us briefly.

5 A. When they took my permit, I became aware of the fact that after

6 what Mr. Denic had told me, that I was forbidden to leave and I became

7 worried. I then decided to report to the municipal Red Cross in the

8 municipality of Banja Luka, and to go there with an application to go

9 towards Novski and Okucani in the direction of Zagreb. I officially

10 reported there but a colleague of my wife, who was related, she was a

11 cousin of Perka who ran that agency, my wife asked that colleague of hers

12 to organise departure through Perka and to enable us to get to Travnik,

13 but the condition was not to be put on the official record because they

14 would forward this record to the state security service. And my mother

15 and wife went to Perka. My mother gave Perka 500 German marks so that she

16 wouldn't put us on the list. This is how I entered the convoy but I was

17 officially on the list for Novska but I went in a completely different

18 direction and I managed to enter other territory.

19 MS. KORNER: Mr. Dzonlic, thank you very much indeed.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: Now, Mr. Dzonlic, I barely need to explain this to

21 you because you are a lawyer, and an experienced and very capable lawyer

22 from what I have seen, it's now the turn of the Defence teams to start

23 their cross-examination. First cross-examination is forthcoming from the

24 Defence team for Mr. Brdjanin. And the attorney is Mr. Ackerman.

25 Mr. Ackerman, you may proceed.

1 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, Your Honour.

2 Cross-examined by Mr. Ackerman:

3 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Dzonlic, how are you?

4 A. Thank you. I'm fine.

5 Q. This -- I'm going to talk to you first about what you talked about

6 just a moment ago. You went through a very long explanation of why

7 conditions in Banja Luka were so much different from other towns and

8 villages in the area. And one of the things you talked about was that

9 there was such an international presence there that it was important to

10 create a situation in Banja Luka to make it appear that bad things were

11 not happening, correct?

12 A. Yes, that's what I said.

13 Q. Wasn't it obvious to these international people that there were

14 bad things happening with all of the people that were living on the street

15 who had been thrown out of their apartments?

16 A. They couldn't notice these people in the streets. People weren't

17 sleeping in the streets. If someone had been expelled from his flat, he

18 would have a cousin and he would go and stay with this cousin.

19 Q. So people weren't made homeless, in other words?

20 A. People were made homeless but our people, Bosniaks, are

21 charitable, the people are humane and they want to help each other and

22 very glad to receive friends, acquaintances. And all these people who

23 were expelled were made homeless because when I am living with someone

24 else, that's not my house. I'm just there temporarily. All those who

25 were forced out were made homeless, though.

1 Q. Where did all of the Serb refugees coming into Banja Luka who had

2 been forced out of Croatia and various parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, where

3 were they living? Were they on the streets or in homes or what?

4 A. I don't know about this.

5 Q. Well, you know there were thousands and thousands of Serb refugees

6 coming into Banja Luka, don't you, who were being thrown out of Croatia

7 and other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

8 A. It's not correct. In 1992, there weren't any Serbs coming, and

9 they weren't forced out from Banja Luka, forced to -- forced out to

10 Croatia to Banja Luka.

11 Q. And would you take the position that Serbs weren't forced out of

12 Muslim municipalities like the Konjic municipality in 1992, early 1992,

13 April, May?

14 A. I don't know whether the Serbs were forced out of the municipality

15 of Konjic. I'm not aware of this fact. But I have my personal position

16 with regard to this. I don't think they were forced out.

17 Q. Would you concede that Muslim -- that Serbs were forced out of any

18 Muslim municipalities in Bosnia-Herzegovina?

19 A. I wouldn't agree with that.

20 Q. You know nothing, I take it, about, for instance, the liberation

21 of a village called Bradina, in the Konjic municipality, by Muslim forces?

22 A. No, I don't know anything about that.

23 MR. ACKERMAN: Could the witness be provided again with Exhibit

24 P470, which is the Official Gazette, Banja Luka municipality, for 20 July?

25 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, can I -- if I have it, could I formally

1 ask that those two exhibits, P470 and P471 be admitted? I think I said it

2 as we were going through, but --

3 JUDGE AGIUS: You did already. Yes, they are being admitted as

4 exhibits, P470 and the other one was --

5 MS. KORNER: P471. And I'm reminded that we put in the video of

6 religious destruction. Could that be P472? And there is -- yet another

7 version of that Banja Luka map, it will have to have a separate exhibit

8 number, Your Honour, so that will be P2.2.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: You may proceed, Mr. Ackerman.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, Your Honour.

11 Q. Mr. Dzonlic, you should now have before you the Official Gazette

12 of the municipality of Banja Luka of 20 July, 1992. Do you have that?

13 A. Yes. I have that document.

14 Q. And when Ms. Korner began to ask you about that document, she was

15 asking you about the relative positions of the Crisis Staff of the

16 Autonomous Region and the municipality of Banja Luka, and you indicated

17 that the municipality of Banja Luka would have been required to implement

18 the decisions of the ARK Crisis Staff. I believe that was kind of the

19 preamble to your testimony regarding this document, this gazette from the

20 municipality of Banja Luka. Correct?

21 A. Yes. I think that is correct.

22 Q. Let's just look at these decisions. Let's start on page 1 with

23 number 199. The first thing I would like to draw your attention to is the

24 first paragraph there. The first paragraph sets out the basis for the

25 decision that's being made, does it not, in accordance with what act,

1 things of that nature? So, for instance, with 199, it's in accordance

2 with Article 114 of the urban development act of the Serbian Republic of

3 Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Article 240 of the statute of the municipality of

4 Banja Luka; right?

5 A. Yes, that's right.

6 Q. No where in that paragraph does it say, "And pursuant to a

7 decision of the Crisis Staff of the Autonomous Region of Krajina," does

8 it?

9 A. That's correct.

10 Q. Please look at number 200 on the next page. No reference to the

11 Crisis Staff in that first paragraph, is there?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. There is a reference to the Crisis Staff?

14 A. No, there isn't.

15 Q. Number 202 on the next page, no reference to the Crisis Staff, is

16 there, the ARK Crisis Staff?

17 A. No, it doesn't mention it.

18 Q. Decision 204, what happened to 203? In any event, decision 204,

19 no mention of the ARK Crisis Staff, is there?

20 A. No.

21 Q. 205, any mention of the ARK Crisis Staff as a basis for the

22 decision?

23 A. No, there isn't.

24 Q. 206, same question.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Ackerman, may I interrupt you.

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Will you simply ask the witness to go through the

3 document one decision after the other himself without the need of putting

4 question repeatedly one time after the other.

5 MR. ACKERMAN: I'll be happy to do that.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: He will tell us at the end whether he, in this

7 document, he notices that a decision is being taken by way of

8 implementation of a previous decision of the ARK crisis.

9 MR. ACKERMAN: I'm perfectly willing for him to do that, Your

10 Honour. I understand.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: At the end of the day it still doesn't mean that any

12 decision is not by way of implementation because you don't need to state

13 each time that you are implementing the decision of someone else. That

14 could be implied from the kind, the nature, the quality of the decision

15 taken as was the case with one of the decisions that Ms. Korner questioned

16 the witness about, namely, the taxation, the 300 Deutschmarks or 100

17 Deutschmark taxation for those living, for defence purposes.

18 MR. ACKERMAN: We will be coming to that, Your Honour, definitely

19 be coming to that one.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: Perhaps the witness can look at these decisions very

21 quickly and see from the introductory part, whether in any of these

22 decisions, there is a preliminary statement saying that it is by way of

23 implementation or execution of the decision of the ARK crisis.

24 MR. ACKERMAN: I think he's now done that and can probably answer

25 you.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Ms. Korner.

2 MS. KORNER: Just simply this, Your Honour, Mr. Ackerman having

3 said what happened to 201, there is a 201 in the original, and I'm sorry,

4 I mean, we are in the same position, we can't physically check every

5 translation, but if anybody wants -

6 MR. ACKERMAN: 203 is the one I was trying to find.

7 MS. KORNER: There is a 203 as well in the original.

8 MR. ACKERMAN: It's not in the translation.

9 MS. KORNER: It's not in the translation either, nor is -- Your

10 Honour, if anybody thinks it's worth it, then we will have to send it back

11 for translation. I mean, I'm reluctant to but there has been a

12 mistranslation.

13 MR. ACKERMAN: And this is one of the final translations. This is

14 not a draft.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: We were better off when we had a draft.

16 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, the drafts are better, Your Honour,

17 apparently.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Anyway, point taken, Ms. Korner, if we need to have

19 those two documents translated, we will have them.

20 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, if either of the numbers that has not been

21 translated refers to a decision of the ARK Crisis Staff, then I think it

22 probably should be translated.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: I can't tell you that, Mr. Ackerman.

24 MR. ACKERMAN: I can't either.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Because I can't read --

1 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, we will have it read through in the

2 break.

3 MR. ACKERMAN:

4 Q. Mr. Dzonlic, have you looked through all of these decisions as the

5 Judge has suggested?

6 A. I haven't read through all of them but I have read through the

7 majority of them and I can see that in the preamble of the decision, no

8 reference is made to the Crisis Staff.

9 Q. And under the law regarding the making and writing of decisions,

10 it is required that one state in the preamble the basis upon which the

11 decision is being made, isn't it? Isn't that legally required?

12 A. Yes, that's right.

13 Q. Now, let's go to number 213, that Ms. Korner referred you to.

14 Have you found that one?

15 A. Yes, I have found it.

16 Q. This is the one that you referred to as the Serbs changing the

17 names of streets to Serb names, and basically stamping their territory as

18 Serbian territory. That was basically your testimony, was it not?

19 A. Yes, that's what I said.

20 Q. Do you know who Kralj Petar Karadjordjevic is?

21 A. Yes, I do.

22 Q. Who is that?

23 A. That's King Petar.

24 Q. And the change there is from the Marsal Tito Street, which is --

25 everybody knows who he was, to the King Petar Street then; correct?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Look at the second one. Who is Mose Pijade; do you know?

3 A. Yes, I do.

4 Q. Who is Mose Pijade

5 A. Mose Pijade --

6 THE INTERPRETER: I'm sorry, I can't hear.

7 A. Mose Pijade was a former partisan in the Second World War. He was

8 part of the resistance, the resistance against the fascist aggression.

9 Q. Was he a Serb or Croat or a Muslim or what?

10 A. I think he was a Jew.

11 Q. And the street was changed to Jewish Street, wasn't it?

12 A. Yes, it was.

13 Q. That's not a Serbian street name, then, is it?

14 A. That's not a name at all. It designates a membership of people.

15 It's not a person's name, because Jewish is not the name of a person. It

16 just designates a membership of a people.

17 Q. That was not changed to a Serbian street name, was it?

18 A. In this specific case, it's not a Serbian name of a particular

19 person.

20 Q. Let me to save sometime, let me have you look at the rest of them,

21 three through nine. Are those all situations where streets that had

22 non-Serbian names were changed to Serbian names? Do you want to say that

23 that's the case with every one of those?

24 A. Under number 8, the name it gives is Skender Kulenovic [phoen].

25 His nationality is Bosniak and his name is there. That is not a Serbian

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1 name.

2 Q. So they changed a street to a Bosniak name; right?

3 A. In this case, yes.

4 Q. Could we go now to decision 216, please?

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Ackerman.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes. We will break right now, Your Honour. That's

7 fine.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: We will resume at 5 to 1.00, please.

9 --- Recess taken at 12.31 p.m.

10 --- On resuming at 1.00 p.m.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, the witness, please.

12 Yes, Mr. Ackerman.

13 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, Your Honour.

14 Q. Mr. Dzonlic, we were looking at decision 216, and you have that in

15 front of you, do you not?

16 A. Yes, I do.

17 Q. Now, this is the decision you said was oppressive against

18 non-Serbs because it allowed the police to go inside businesses and harass

19 people for playing music. That's basically your testimony, isn't it?

20 A. I didn't say that they had a negative attitude toward the Serbs.

21 I said that it had a negative impact on the owners of catering

22 establishments and Bosniaks and Croats owned quite a number of such

23 private establishments. And I said that it enabled the Serb police on

24 these grounds to enter those private businesses and to disturb them.

25 Q. Well, let's look first at the first paragraph under Article 1.

1 That paragraph bans the playing of music outdoors, outside of bars, in the

2 streets and squares, and pedestrian areas. That's what it bans, isn't it?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. The second one deals only with bars, "Playing music inside bars,

5 is allowed at a reasonable volume so that it does not disturb passersby

6 and tenants"; right?

7 A. Yes, that is correct.

8 Q. I guess you would agree that you would -- you might find that kind

9 of a law, that kind of a statute, in almost any city in the world that has

10 noise ordinances, noise restriction laws, probably you have it here in The

11 Hague, don't you guess?

12 A. Yes, I would agree with you.

13 Q. Let's look at 217, the next decision. Now, I take it,

14 Mr. Dzonlic, that you were handed this Official Gazette of the

15 municipality of Banja Luka of July 20, 1992, and as -- and asked to look

16 through this and see if you could find any indication that the Banja Luka

17 municipality had followed any decisions or conclusions of the ARK Crisis

18 Staff. I assume you were asked to do that; is that correct?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. And what you found was the decision at 217, which says "Persons

21 working abroad shall pay 100 Deutschmarks or the same amount in dinars

22 toward their taxes"; right?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. And the decision -- actually it's not a decision. Let me find

25 it. There is a conclusion of the ARK Crisis Staff which is contained in

1 issue number 2 of the ARK gazette, as that which is Prosecution Exhibit

2 what? I've forgotten. I should have written it on here.

3 MS. KORNER: I think it's 227, P227. I think. I did have a list

4 myself. I've thrown mine away, I think.

5 MR. ACKERMAN: We think it's 227, but in any event --

6 MS. KORNER: I'm sorry, 255, sorry.

7 MR. ACKERMAN: All right.

8 Q. Do you need to look at 255 or can you recall that decision --

9 conclusion, actually, where the Crisis Staff decided to introduce a tax

10 for workers abroad in the amount of 100 Deutschmarks or the equivalent

11 amount in dinars? Do you recall that that's the case in the Crisis Staff

12 conclusion, do you not?

13 A. I do recall the conclusion of the Crisis Staff on taxation but

14 that conclusion did not specify the amount of the tax. The municipality

15 did that. It specified the amount of the tax and established that it

16 should be 100 Deutschmarks.

17 MR. ACKERMAN: Provide the witness, please, with Prosecution

18 Exhibit 255. Everybody is shaking their heads as if there is no such

19 thing.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: No, no. It was the first document that was

21 exhibited when Mr. Dzonlic -- this was initially it was described to us or

22 indicated to us as going to be document P339. That was the disclosure

23 number. In reality, then, it came --

24 MR. ACKERMAN: 369.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: No. It's P255. This is the decision of the Crisis

1 Staff of the 22nd June, 1992.

2 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'm so sorry, it's my error. I think we

3 will find it's 227. I'm very sorry.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: Microphone, please.

5 MS. KORNER: It's P227, disclosure number 3.69.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: It's actually my fault, Your Honour, not

7 Ms. Korner's because I should keep better track of things.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: As long as we've sorted it out.

9 MR. ACKERMAN: Okay.

10 Q. I'll direct you in that document to conclusion number 14. Did you

11 find it? Paragraph 5.

12 A. Yes, I've found it. I see it now.

13 Q. And it says, "The Crisis Staff has decided to introduce a tax for

14 workers abroad in the amount of 100 Deutschmarks or the equivalent amount

15 in dinars"; right?

16 A. Yes, that is right.

17 Q. And that tax would have been payable to whom? To what government

18 was that tax payable?

19 A. From this conclusion of the Crisis Staff, it is not indicated to

20 whom it should be payable to.

21 Q. Well, since the Crisis Staff was taking the place of the Assembly

22 of the Autonomous Region of Krajina, the only organ that they could order

23 a tax paid to would be the Autonomous Region of Krajina; isn't that true?

24 A. As far as I know, all payments went to the Defence Ministry, even

25 we, as I said before, were obliged to make a payment of 350 Deutschmarks

1 addressed to the Defence Ministry when leaving Banja Luka, and all taxes

2 were channelled into the financing of the army of the Serbian Republic of

3 Bosnia-Herzegovina. I don't know exactly to which account this was to be

4 payable, but I think that it went to the account of the Defence Ministry.

5 Q. Sir, if you're correct, if all taxes went to the Defence Ministry,

6 then the government of the Autonomous Region of Krajina had no money with

7 which to function. Couldn't pay staff, couldn't do anything; correct?

8 A. That is not correct.

9 Q. You do not find, do you, anywhere in this conclusion, that that

10 100 Deutschmarks is to be paid to the Defence Ministry?

11 A. Here, in the conclusion of the Crisis Staff, dated the 21st of

12 May, 1992, I cannot see to whom these funds are payable. I just see that

13 the obligation is established for the payment of that sum.

14 Q. All right. And I want to ask you the question that you didn't

15 answer a moment ago. That's this: The Crisis Staff, as you have told us,

16 was a substitution for the ARK assembly, and as such, the Crisis Staff

17 could not order a tax to be paid to anybody but the Autonomous Region of

18 Krajina. That would have been their only competence. They couldn't have

19 ordered a tax paid to the Netherlands.

20 A. Of course not. They couldn't make a tax being paid to the

21 Netherlands. I think they couldn't even order this decision to be

22 obliged -- to oblige all citizens in other states, that is, that the

23 citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina, if they are working in the Netherlands,

24 they should pay tax to the Netherlands and not to a third country,

25 especially not the Bosnian Krajina or Bosnia-Herzegovina. A tax is paid

1 where an income is obtained.

2 Q. So this tax, at least, could not have gone beyond the confines of

3 the Autonomous Region of Krajina, could it?

4 A. It could have been paid through commercial banks anywhere in the

5 world, but it was intended for the needs of the Autonomous Region of

6 Krajina. If it was paid and it could have been -- the payment could have

7 been made through commercial banks anywhere in the world.

8 Q. This conclusion is dated 21 May, 1992, isn't it?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. And the Crisis Staff of the Autonomous Region of Krajina was

11 located in Banja Luka, was it not?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. If you look now at the other document, P470, the Official Gazette

14 of the municipality of Banja Luka, at decision 217, the first thing I will

15 draw your attention to is the date of that decision, 16 July, 1992;

16 correct?

17 A. Excuse me, you said decision 216?

18 Q. 17. 217.

19 A. 217.

20 Q. It's the one that talks about persons working abroad shall pay 100

21 Deutschmarks or the same amount in dinars. Do you see that?

22 A. I do. I just don't see the date of the decision.

23 Q. Just look up above the word "decision". It says it was passed at

24 its meeting on 16 July, 1992, doesn't it?

25 A. Yes, I see it now. Yes.

1 Q. Now, that's almost two months after the Crisis Staff conclusion,

2 isn't it?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. And do you still want to take the position that the decision of

5 the municipal assembly on 16 July is in response to a May decision of

6 the -- conclusion of the ARK Crisis Staff? Do you still want to take that

7 position? That it took them two months to get around to this?

8 A. Yes, yes. I still believe that. The decision was probably passed

9 earlier but it was published on the 16th, as it says here.

10 Q. It says -- it says --

11 A. The 16th of July.

12 Q. [Previous translation continues] ...

13 A. I see.

14 Q. That's what it says; right?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Meeting on the 16th of July, passed a decision. Not earlier than

17 that, right?

18 A. Yes. I still stand by what I said, and I do link it to the

19 decision of the Crisis Staff.

20 Q. Now, in this entire edition of the Official Gazette of 20th of

21 July, 1992, you find no other decision of the Banja Luka municipality that

22 you can link to any conclusions of the Crisis Staff, do you?

23 A. Only this decision.

24 Q. Yes. Ms. Korner was asking you about the difference between

25 conclusions of the Crisis Staff and decisions of the Banja Luka

1 municipality. And, Ms. Korner, for your purposes, I'm reading from an

2 answer that's at LiveNote 43, line 1, at 11.34.52 this morning. Your

3 answer, Mr. Dzonlic, to her question was: "The decisions taken by the

4 crisis staff had a greater impact because they were in the form of

5 orders."

6 Now, the first thing I want to you do is go back now to that

7 document that you were looking at earlier, which I think we've decided was

8 227. It's the Official Gazette of the Autonomous Region of Krajina of 5

9 June, 1992. I'd like you to just, on your own, look through that and tell

10 me if you see any document in there that is called an order, or if it

11 isn't simply a few decisions and a lot of conclusions.

12 A. You're referring to the Official Gazette of the Autonomous Region

13 of Krajina and all the decisions it contains? The first decision, a

14 general public mobilisation is ordered throughout the Autonomous Region of

15 Krajina.

16 Q. And that is signed by Lieutenant Colonel Sajic; right?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. The second one that's called a decision is signed by Nikola Erceg;

19 right?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. And then you come to documents that are called conclusions. There

22 are one -- two of those; right?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. Okay. I'm not going to go through all of these. I want to go on

25 with your answer now after the word "orders." "The decisions taken by the

1 Crisis Staff had a greater impact because they were in the form of orders

2 as compared to those taken by the municipal assembly of Banja Luka."

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Now, if you look at those of the Municipal Assembly of Banja Luka,

5 which is P470, that's the 20 July, 1992, edition of the Official Gazette,

6 and you have that there in front of you, do you not?

7 A. The municipal Official Gazette?

8 Q. Starts with --

9 A. Yes, I do have it.

10 Q. Starts with 199 and through 243. If you look at the very back,

11 there is an index which will help you.

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Every one of those documents with maybe one exception is a

14 decision; correct?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Okay. You go on with your answer, "That assembly," referring to

17 the Banja Luka Municipal Assembly, "Necessarily had to make certain

18 decisions such as this one in the Official Gazette because once the Crisis

19 Staff established a certain strategy, then it would make the decision that

20 the legal authorities should implement those decisions because, according

21 to the laws, the positive regulations in force at the time." What were

22 the laws and positive regulations in force at the time, July 20th, 1992?

23 A. All the positive regulations that existed. We see in the

24 decisions, in the Official Gazette of Banja Luka municipality,

25 specifically the law on urban development, for instance. That is

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1 frequently referred to because according to that law, it was only the

2 municipal assembly that could implement decisions linked to urban

3 development and not the Crisis Staff, and that is why reference here is to

4 the Municipal Assembly of Banja Luka. They couldn't change the law on

5 urban development so that this should be done instead of by the municipal

6 assembly by the Crisis Staff. So then there is frequent mention of this

7 act, Urban Development Act.

8 Now, let's look further. The law on expropriation, on

9 construction land, et cetera. These are the positive regulations that

10 were in force then and are in force even today, and they were taken over

11 from the former SFRY and accepted as generally applicable, many of which

12 are still valid to this day, some with minor changes.

13 Q. So your statement that the municipality of Banja Luka needed to

14 comply with the laws and positive regulations in force at the time

15 referred to basically what we see in these preambles and just, for

16 instance, in the first one, 199, the Urban Development Act, which you

17 talked about, is an act of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and

18 it appears in the Official Gazette of the Serbian Republic of

19 Bosnia-Herzegovina, doesn't it?

20 A. You said it has to conform with the law. According to those laws,

21 it was competent for such acts, regulatory provisions regarding land

22 development. And it was the municipal assembly that is competent for the

23 implementation of decisions on land development and that is why it took

24 such decisions.

25 Q. Yes, but what I'm really trying to refer you to is decision 199.

1 They say the decision is being made in accordance with Article 114 of the

2 Urban Development Act, which is apparently an act of the Serbian Republic

3 of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In other words, the assembly of SRBiH, I would

4 assume; would that be correct?

5 A. Yes, yes.

6 Q. And I'm not going to go through each one of these but many of

7 these decisions refer to that Urban Development Act, don't they, of the

8 SRBiH?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. All right. In your testimony on your first day here, you were

11 talking with Ms. Korner about the issue of mobilisation, and people who

12 failed to respond to mobilisation and what would happen to those who

13 failed to respond, and at page 2310 of the transcript, you were asked this

14 question: "What about those of Serb ethnicity who did not respond?" Your

15 answer was: "As far as I know not a single Serbian citizen was subjected

16 to proceedings of any kind." Do you recall that answer?

17 A. I do, up to a point. I remember saying something like that. I

18 don't know that any citizen of Serb ethnicity was exposed to any kind of

19 torture or suffered any consequences because of failure to respond to the

20 mobilisation call.

21 Q. Your answer was proceedings of any kind, and then you proceeded to

22 talk about charges brought against people who you represented and that

23 some of them were charged in military courts where the sentences were

24 severe, and some in misdemeanour courts where the sentences were fines.

25 You recall that whole bit of conversation, do you not?

1 A. Yes, I do.

2 Q. I'd like you to be shown DB -- Exhibits DB50A, 51A and 52A,

3 please?

4 JUDGE AGIUS: While he is waiting to be shown these documents,

5 Mr. Ackerman, may I remind you of the arrangement we have to dedicate the

6 last quarter of an hour to discuss the issue, the legal issue, that you

7 wanted to raise? So I leave it to you to decide or show me a preference,

8 whether you would like to stop now and raise the matter or continue with

9 your cross-examination now that you have sort of opened a new parenthesis

10 and have your submissions on the legal matter tomorrow morning? It's up

11 to you.

12 MR. ACKERMAN: I think, Your Honour, that this can be done, what

13 I'm doing right now, can be done in about two minutes.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay.

15 MR. ACKERMAN: I'm going to try to do it in about two minutes, at

16 least.

17 Q. Mr. Dzonlic, what you're being shown are three documents, and I'll

18 simply ask you aren't these criminal charges brought against Serbs for

19 failing to respond to the mobilisation in the military court? I think you

20 can answer that yes or no.

21 A. Yes. These are criminal charges. This is a report which wants to

22 institute proceedings, but whether or not proceedings were instituted, I

23 do not know. This is just a criminal report, perhaps from the Secretariat

24 of Defence. I don't know who was the originator. But I don't think

25 criminal proceedings were instituted, if I have understood you well. This

1 is just a criminal report for not responding to mobilisation, and it is

2 against the persons who have been named in the reports.

3 Q. Well, it doesn't say criminal report. It says "criminal charges,"

4 does it not? "Krivicnu prijavu" is criminal charges, correct? Not

5 "criminal report"?

6 A. Yes, yes.

7 MR. ACKERMAN: I think this is a good time to stop. Thank you.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: So Mr. Dzonlic, once more, the Trial Chamber thanks

9 you for your patience and your cooperation throughout the whole of this

10 morning, as it was the case yesterday and the day before. I'm afraid your

11 task is not over as yet. Your presence is needed again tomorrow. And I

12 take it that probably, in all probability, we will not even finish

13 tomorrow with you. So be prepared that you may have to stay -- to come

14 back on Monday.

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Very well.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you once more. And you may now leave the

17 courtroom. You will be escorted of course. Thank you. In the meantime,

18 please, the same advice or warning that I gave you yesterday and the day

19 before, that you are not to communicate with anyone regarding the -- and

20 we will see you tomorrow morning at 9.00.

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you for the warning.

22 [The witness stands down]

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. I think, Mr. Ackerman, do you want to wait

24 until the witness is out or can we start straight away?

25 MS. KORNER: I'm sorry -- [Microphone not activated] Your Honour,

1 these documents were handed to us one minute before Your Honours sat.

2 Understand from Mr. Ackerman that these are the documents he referred to

3 the other day, which he had just been sent from Banja Luka. The

4 explanation is, as I understand it, without a translation, he can't judge

5 whether or not they are going to be relevant. Your Honour, I do not

6 accept that. I do not accept that, as I have already pointed out once in

7 Court and certainly to Mr. Ackerman, he has on his team no less than two

8 people who both read and understand and write the language. It must be

9 clear whether or not there is an official translation, that these

10 documents are going to be used. Your Honour, rightly, Mr. Ackerman and

11 Defence team for Mr. Talic have objected if we didn't give lists of

12 documents. The same must apply.

13 In addition, in relation to these particular documents, having

14 heard the witness's answer, before I agree that that they should be

15 admitted and seek to argue them. I want to know exactly what these

16 documents are, where they come from, and obviously whether it is the

17 results of any Prosecution, if there were a Prosecution, because the

18 witness's answer is that these are not anything further than a report with

19 a view to proceedings, what the up shot was. Now, clearly, my learned

20 friends have access to documents or information, but at the moment, I

21 object to these documents being admitted if they are being put forward as

22 proof that Serbs were actually prosecuted. And I certainly would like, in

23 future, please, to receive -- I've already indicated, we are happy to

24 receive the documents untranslated, if it is known that they are going to

25 be used and that, at the time when they will be used they will be

1 translated.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Ms. Korner. Mr. Ackerman?

3 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, as you know, these witnesses

4 frequently don't have in their statements the things that require

5 investigation, and this witness said for the first time on 26 February

6 that not a single Serbian citizen was subjected to proceedings of any

7 kind. It's only at that point that I can say to an investigator, "Check

8 this out and tell me whether there is any information of that nature."

9 Fortunately it was able to be checked out rather quickly and I stood up

10 when those documents arrived and told you that I had them and told you

11 that I couldn't use them with the witness because they hadn't been

12 translated and there was no opportunity with the witness that was here

13 before to get them translated in time and that I would have it done as

14 quickly as I could and furnish them to the Prosecutor and they were

15 brought to me by the translator at the last break. I didn't expect them

16 to be here even today. I thought that I'd probably have to use them when

17 we got to the Defence case because of the lack of speed in the translation

18 business.

19 I can't do any better than conduct investigations when I hear the

20 testimony.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: I understand, Mr. Ackerman, your explanation in so

22 far as it tries to impression the Trial Chamber that the need to instruct

23 an investigator to make queries, find out whether the witness's statement

24 was correct or not only arose two days ago. That I can understand. I

25 also understand that in a way, you were fortunate that, or rather we were

1 fortunate, that these three documents were dug up, found, almost

2 immediately. Where I disagree with you, and I have to concede the point

3 to Ms. Korner is that even on the face of these three documents, you had

4 two words which you faced the witness with, namely "kivicnu prijavu,"

5 which to you means "criminal charges." You also had names which your two

6 colleagues could easily identify as being of Serbian or not of Serbian

7 origin, and at that point in time, regardless of the translation issue or

8 problem, you, perhaps for the future, you could have shown towards each

9 other more flexibility and said, "These three documents, on the face of

10 them, seem to be relevant. I intend to use them pending furnishing you

11 with a translation and photocopying the original as received in B/C/S

12 language." In the meantime the Prosecution will be prepared in

13 anticipation of the translation that you will be furnishing. Because I

14 suppose that inside the remaining part of this Tribunal, they also have

15 facilities, although not immediately in the courtroom, and they could have

16 made use of them. I mean, what I am appealing for, as a Trial Chamber, is

17 more flexibility. It's not a question of cooperation. I understand that

18 sometimes the way these problems arise are more or less thrown upon us,

19 and the solution is not always easy. And we are only talking of two days

20 in any case. But had you given -- or after consulting your two partners,

21 your two colleagues, identified at least on a prima facie basis that these

22 were documents that you were going to face the witness with eventually,

23 you could have come forward with the -- in a more flexible manner and I'm

24 sure that Ms. Korner wouldn't have said no to receiving the three

25 documents in B/C/S and then look into the matter further within the

1 possibilities of the OTP.

2 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, I understand, Your Honour, and you're right.

3 I'll try in the future to have the documents carefully reviewed before I

4 send them to the translator.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: We are talking of three pages; we are not talking of

6 three volumes. If you had received a voluminous amount of documentation,

7 which I can't expect your colleagues to translate while they are supposed

8 to be here in the courtroom with you, I would have been more

9 comprehending.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: I receive very many documents from Banja Luka, Your

11 Honour, and I can tell you a great number of them are totally irrelevant

12 to what's going on.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: My suggestion is to resort to a more flexible

14 approach, which would spare us having to waste time on aggravations that

15 are aggravations. I mean, I must concede that they are very legitimate

16 ones.

17 MR. ACKERMAN: I will do the best I can.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.

19 MR. ACKERMAN: The other matter, Your Honour --

20 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment, let me see what Ms. Korner says about

21 that.

22 MR. ACKERMAN: We had reserved this for the issue of the

23 journalist and I thought I was going to get to talk about that and we have

24 used up the whole time on something else.

25 MS. KORNER: I appreciate that and I know that but the difficulty

1 is, I'm afraid that Mr. Ackerman seems to have forgotten that the

2 reference to the documents that arrived from Banja Luka was not in

3 relation to this witness but to another witness sometime ago. So these

4 documents cannot have arrived on the 26th, which is the day before

5 yesterday -- or the first he heard of it.

6 Your Honour, the other matter is and I'm trying to find it, this

7 issue of Muslims and Croats being prosecuted but not Serbs, wasn't

8 something that was said for the first time the other day. I'm trying to

9 find the passage in one of the statements, but Your Honour, all that I'm

10 saying at the moment is that this question of taking the Prosecution by

11 surprise, which is in our submission what is really all about, it doesn't

12 assist matters because all it does is ends up with an argument.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: I agree with that you.

14 MS. KORNER: Like this. So for the moment, Your Honour, I

15 maintain, however, my objection to the admissibility of these documents

16 until I'm told, as we were obliged to do with the Prosecution documents,

17 the source from which they were obtained and, secondly, whether or not

18 there are any documents that show the outcome of any proceedings that were

19 taken in relation to these people.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman. I take it the first point is

21 important. In other words, be prepared the earliest opportunity that you

22 have or is convenient to you to bring forward evidence as to the origin or

23 at least make a statement as to the origin of these documents. The rest,

24 I think, I cannot concede to you, Ms. Korner, because it's a matter that

25 can be -- can form part of the evidence that the Defence will be bringing

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1 later on, and we can visit that later on. However, with regard to the

2 admission of the documents, on the prima facie basis of indicia of

3 reliability, I think we have to apply the same standard, once it has been

4 contested by the Prosecution, I think it has to be taken in hand by you,

5 Mr. Ackerman, and provide the Tribunal with a prima facie indication as to

6 the origin of these documents, even though they are stamped and signed. I

7 mean, what is important is to tell us how the Defence --

8 MR. ACKERMAN: Would you like me to bring the investigator from

9 Banja Luka to testify about that source?

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Well, I'm not going to tell you what I would like or

11 what I wouldn't like. As it is, you know that hearsay, the hearsay rule

12 here is not applied here as it is applied in your country or in my country

13 or in Ms. Korner's country. If you have the information, you can make an

14 official statement tomorrow morning and then it's up to the Tribunal to

15 decide whether that is in itself a sufficient indicia of reliability and

16 we move forward from there. With regard to the outcome of these

17 documents, we will -- that's your problem later on. But I think I have

18 made myself understood.

19 Before we conclude, I think I ought to invite you to just tell me

20 in a few words what your submission with regard to newspaper reports is,

21 very briefly, not going to be discussed now, but at least we will go home

22 prepared knowing what it is all about and tomorrow morning then we can

23 thrash it out first thing before we continue with the evidence of

24 Mr. Dzonlic. Do you agree?

25 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes. There are two newspaper reports. They are

1 dated March of 1993, significantly beyond the scope of the indictment.

2 They refer to statements allegedly made by Mr. Brdjanin in March of 1993.

3 It's the Prosecution's contention with regard to his statements, as I

4 understand it, that they are important for the effect they had on what

5 happened during the course of the indictment and anything he said after

6 that period, it seems to me, could not have affected before that period

7 and therefore I think they are simply irrelevant and not admissible. And

8 now, if the Court decides otherwise, then we have to deal with some

9 additional issues.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Madam Registrar, please make sure that I have

11 a printout of this last statement by Mr. Ackerman so that I will have it

12 before me tomorrow morning when we discuss the matter.

13 MS. KORNER: And, Your Honour, can I say that the reason we seek

14 to put this in is not to show the effect that it would have had on the

15 people of Banja Luka but to show the state of mind of Mr. Brdjanin with

16 the going to his direct intention.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. The whole -- the printout would also include

18 what Ms. Korner has just stated.

19 I thank you. My apologies to the interpreters. We have

20 overstepped the limits by about two minutes. I promise I will not do it

21 again, if I can help it. I thank you all. We will meet again tomorrow

22 morning at 9.00. Thank you.

23 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.47, to be

24 reconvened on Friday the 1st day of March, 2002, at

25 9.00 a.m.