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Page 168

1 hearing of this trial.

2 We turn now to the opportunity for the Prosecution to make its

3 opening statement. Mr. Stamp.

4 MR. STAMP: Thank you very much, Your Honours.

5 At the outset, I should say that the trial commencing today is

6 primarily about the deportation of a substantial proportion of the

7 civilian population of Kosovo. Few of us, I think, can forget the

8 shocking and heart-rending images in the media during 1999 of seemingly

9 endless columns or convoys of refugees, including women, children, the

10 elderly, leaving Kosovo on foot, on animal- and human-drawn carts and

11 wagons, by tractors and any other type of motor vehicle that was

12 available. In all, between the 24th of March, 1999, and the 10th of

13 June, 1999, about 800.000 Kosovar Albanians fled the territory, and that

14 is out of a population of some 2 million, a little over 2 million. They

15 fled to the neighbouring states, primarily Albania and Macedonia. Most

16 of them departed in the first month of the conflict. This trial is about

17 how and why that human exodus from Kosovo took place and about who was

18 responsible for it.

19 The Prosecution says that the evidence in this case will show

20 that the accused, Vlastimir Djordjevic, participated with other members

21 of the Serbian political, military, and police leadership in a joint

22 criminal enterprise, a JCE as we call it, to expel a significant portion

23 of the Kosovo Albanian population from Kosovo, and that the execution of

24 this plan involved terrorising the Kosovo Albanian population into

25 fleeing by the commission of many acts of persecution against them,

Page 169

1 including and in particular murder.

2 The purpose of the JCE, the joint criminal enterprise, was to

3 modify the ethnic balance of Kosovo in order to maintain and continue

4 Serbian control over the province. While motive is not a necessary

5 element for us to prove in this case, it is a factor that can help

6 Your Honours to understand the evidence. Thus you will hear some

7 evidence about the special importance of Kosovo in Serbian history and

8 its importance to some members of the leadership of the Serbian

9 government.

10 And I should tell you here that I will probably, in the course of

11 this opening address, use acronyms, fall into the habits of using

12 acronyms, like JCE for joint criminal enterprise. I have distributed and

13 I hope Your Honours have in your possession a glossary of the common

14 acronyms for various organs, organisations and persons -- not persons,

15 but organisations relevant to this case. I think it has been delivered

16 to Your Honours.

17 In furtherance of the objective of the JCE, the authors of this

18 campaign of ethnic cleansing executed a concerted plan to terrorise the

19 ethnic Albanians into leaving the province. You will hear evidence of

20 massive executions and the systematic process by which Serbian forces

21 went from hamlet to hamlet, village to village, town to town, murdering,

22 raping, burning, looting and destroying property in their path. And it

23 will be readily perceived by the end of the Prosecution's case that the

24 massive movement of refugees throughout Kosovo and out of Kosovo was a

25 direct consequence of the rampages of these forces.

Page 170

1 This process had the intended effect of frightening the civilian

2 population to leave their homes. Villagers could hear the sound of

3 artillery from neighbouring villages, see houses burning, hear horror

4 stories from fleeing victims and feared that the same fate awaited them.

5 Consequently, many of them would load their families on carts or tractors

6 or any means of transport available and join the convoys to avoid being

7 beaten, raped, or even murdered. The looting and burning and destruction

8 of Kosovo Albanian property was intended to ensure that there was nothing

9 left for them to return to, if they dared.

10 So as I indicated, the main issue in this case is deportation but

11 also the principal means employed to achieve the deportation and that is

12 murder.

13 Before discussing the crimes and the perpetrators, I think it

14 would be useful, Your Honours, if I gave a brief overview in the area

15 that we are discussing, its demographics, population, and people. It

16 might be useful to show a couple of maps in talking about the history of

17 Kosovo. During the trial you may hear it referred to in a variety of

18 ways. We here will call it Kosovo, sometimes Kosovo and Metohija. If

19 you ever look at the first map, I think, on your screens, this is a map

20 of the Balkans showing the various states surrounding Serbia and Kosovo,

21 in the whole scheme of things.

22 I don't know if Your Honours have it on your screens. I think if

23 you hit the video button --

24 JUDGE PARKER: We each have the display, Mr. Stamp.

25 MR. STAMP: Oh, thank you very much.

Page 171

1 JUDGE PARKER: No problem. Thank you.

2 MR. STAMP: Before the wars of the early 1990s, the former

3 Yugoslavia, then called the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the

4 SFRY, looked like the picture you're seeing on the screen. The SFRY was

5 then made up of six republics. In alphabetical order, they are Bosnia,

6 Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Within Serbia

7 itself were the two so-called autonomous provinces of Vojvodina to the

8 north and Kosovo to the south.

9 As you can see, Kosovo was located to the south and importantly

10 its southern border, its south-west border, was shared with Albania; and

11 that is an important factor, I think, to remember in the geography when

12 we come to deal with evidence with the movements of people and the

13 development of the joint criminal enterprise in this case.

14 Kosovo had been contested territory for much of its history.

15 Between 1912 and 1918, and again during World War II, Kosovo was occupied

16 by a number of different invaders. At the end of the Second World War,

17 Kosovo was formally annexed to Serbia. You will find that Kosovo is a

18 very small area, geographically speaking, notwithstanding its population

19 of 2 million people.

20 And if we look at the next map on the screen, you will see the

21 main towns of Kosovo. Many of these towns are the towns that will be the

22 subject -- or we will discuss in terms of being the locations where many

23 of the crimes charged in the indictment were committed. You will see the

24 capital of the province, Pristina, toward the centre but to the right,

25 that is, to the east of the province.

Page 172

1 Kosovo is barely 150 kilometres at its widest point, and some

2 inferences can be drawn from the size of the place. If you -- I would

3 like to show you another map. This is a map with the 29 municipalities

4 of Kosovo. The deportation counts and indeed the murder counts are

5 organised in terms of the municipalities in which they occurred. This

6 map simply shows the municipalities, and no doubt as the case progresses,

7 Your Honours, you will become more familiar with the relevant

8 municipalities in the case.

9 You will note that in the indictment and in some maps that you

10 will be shown in the process of -- in the course of the case, there will

11 be alternative spellings for the place names, with the Serbian version

12 first followed by the Albanian. In certain instances, the name is the

13 same in both languages. Some witnesses, mainly the Serbian witnesses,

14 will refer to the Serbian names and the Albanian witnesses will probably

15 refer to the Albanian names. We will use the Serbian names to ensure

16 that the accused and his representatives know where we're talking about.

17 The population of Kosovo, if we could turn to the demographics,

18 was composed of two groups - Albanians and Serbs. Prior to the conflict

19 in 1999, the last census, with nearly complete participation, took place

20 in 1981 and showed a total population for Kosovo of approximately

21 1.585 million citizens, that is 1 million, 585.000 citizens, of which

22 77 percent were Albanians, and 13 percent were Serbs. The remaining

23 10 percent consisted of different groups, including Roma and Turks, that

24 were smaller in number.

25 The next census in 1991 was boycotted by Kosovo Albanians, but

Page 173

1 the general estimates of the Kosovo population in 1998 suggest that the

2 total population for Kosovo in that year was in the neighbourhood of

3 between 2 and 2.2 million people, of which Kosovo Albanians constituted

4 80 to 85 percent, and Serbs approximately 10 percent. So you will see a

5 change in the demographics, declining proportion of Serbs and increasing

6 proportion of ethnic Albanians in the population. And we intend to lead

7 expert evidence on the demographic composition of the population at the

8 relevant time.

9 All the crimes charged in the indictment against the accused, the

10 persecutions, which includes the rapes, physical assaults, robbery,

11 destruction of property, and the murders, occurred during the first half

12 of 1999. However, the indictment also alleges specifically that in 1998

13 forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, that is the FRY, and of

14 Serbia had engaged in conduct involving excessive and indiscriminate

15 force and attacks against civilians. This is important background for

16 understanding what happened later, not least of all how the joint

17 criminal enterprise developed and to gain some insight into the state of

18 mind of the accused Djordjevic and his awareness that forces subordinated

19 to him had and were likely to commit crimes against Kosovo Albanian

20 civilians when they came in contact with them.

21 And so for a better understanding of the events in that first

22 half of 1999, I propose to give a very brief overview of the history of

23 the area of Kosovo and its place in the nation, the Serbian state.

24 In 1974, a new constitution was passed in the SFRY, that's the

25 Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which in effect provided for a

Page 174

1 shift of power from the central federal authority to the six constituent

2 republics, that is, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and

3 Slovenia, and to the two provinces, the two autonomous provinces of

4 Vojvodina and Kosovo which were part of Serbia. The powers granted

5 included republican and provincial control over the judiciary, the

6 police, and the educational system. So we see at that point a devolution

7 of power towards the province of Kosovo.

8 In 1980 President Tito, who had led Yugoslavia for 35 years,

9 died. Shortly after that, ethnic and nationalistic fears long suppressed

10 were given vent. Political unrest began to stir in Kosovo. In the

11 1980s, the Kosovo Serbs voiced their concerns about discrimination

12 against them by the Albanian majority provincial government. Meanwhile,

13 during the same period of the 1980s, Kosovo Albanians expressed concern

14 about economic underdevelopment in the province. The Kosovo Albanians

15 also sought additional political liberalisation and republic status for

16 Kosovo.

17 Beginning in the 1980s and continuing on and through the 1990s,

18 Kosovo Albanians frequently staged demonstrations in support of greater

19 independence and autonomy, which were often forcibly suppressed by the

20 military and police forces of Serbia. In 1989, in particular the SFRY

21 Presidency responded strongly to the ongoing unrest in Kosovo, declaring

22 that the situation had deteriorated to such an extent as to threaten the

23 constitution, integrity, and sovereignty of the country. The SFRY

24 Presidency imposed special measures which reassigned police authority and

25 responsibility for public security from the provincial government of

Page 175

1 Kosovo back to the federal government of the SFRY. So we see a reversal

2 of the constitutional process or the constitutional achievements of 1974

3 underway.

4 On the 23rd of March, 1989, the Kosovo Assembly met, and we say,

5 and you'll hear evidence from the first witness, I believe, we say that

6 under threat and duress and intimidation, caused in no small part by the

7 presence of tanks outside the Assembly building, the members voted to

8 give up control of the police, education, choice of official language,

9 and veto powers over further changes to the Serbian constitution. A few

10 days later the Assembly of Serbia approved changes to the constitution

11 and revoked the autonomy previously granted to Kosovo in 1974. The

12 courts and municipal councils in Kosovo ceased to function.

13 Not surprisingly there followed more strikes, more

14 demonstrations, and more agitation by the populous of Kosovo in support

15 of the autonomy and independence, and these actions were strongly

16 suppressed by the Serbian authorities.

17 In the early 1990s, measures were put in place that we say were

18 the early attempts by legislative means to alter the ethnic balance in

19 Kosovo in order to maintain Serbian control of the province. By then it

20 was seen that the province was slipping away, and the major factor which

21 impeded Serbian control was the fact of the minority status and the

22 declining proportion of the population. Albanian professionals were

23 removed from their jobs merely because of their ethnicity, and they were

24 replaced by Serbs whether qualified for the position or not. Indeed,

25 after the outbreak of war in Croatia and Bosnia, a significant number of

Page 176

1 Serbian refugees from those republics were relocated to Kosovo in order

2 to bolster the Serbian population there, and special incentives to lure

3 Serbs to settle in Kosovo were attempted. But this particular sort of

4 effort to alter the ethnic balance in favour of the Serbs did not meet

5 with any great success.

6 In July 1999 -- in July 1990, the Kosovo Assembly passed an

7 unofficial resolution declaring Kosovo to be an equal and independent

8 entity within the SFRY, that is, equal to the republics of Serbia,

9 Croatia, and Bosnia. The Assembly of Serbia responded within a matter of

10 days by passing a decision suspending or dissolving the Assembly of

11 Kosovo.

12 The suspended Kosovo Assembly continued to remain active,

13 however, and in September 1990 proclaimed a constitution for the would-be

14 "Republic of Kosovo." This is what they called it. A year later, in

15 September 1991, the Kosovo Albanians held an unofficial referendum which

16 was overwhelmingly in favour of independence.

17 In May 1992 the Kosovo Albanians held official elections for an

18 assembly -- sorry, held unofficially elections. They had been officially

19 dissolved by the Serbian parliament. They held unofficial elections for

20 the Assembly and president for their own "Republic of Kosovo," as they

21 called it. Ibrahim Rugova, now deceased, a founder and member of the

22 Democratic League of Kosovo was chosen president and six years later was

23 re-elected to that position.

24 During the early 1990s, the LDK, as I would call the Democratic

25 League of Kosovo, the LDK led an unofficial coalition government and

Page 177

1 pursued a policy of a non-violent civil resistance and began establishing

2 unofficial parallel institutions in the sectors of education and health

3 care in Kosovo.

4 So the early 1990s, was a period when the majority Kosovo

5 Albanians kept up the pressure in asserting their desire for greater

6 independence or autonomy by acts of protests or acts of civil

7 disobedience, and the Serbian authorities responded by restricting or

8 removing whatever authority and power they had, and sometimes with

9 violence.

10 By the mid 1990s, there was growing dissolution on the part of

11 Kosovo Albanians with Dr. Rugova and the LDK's policy of non-violent

12 resistance, and a faction of Kosovo Albanians organised a group known as

13 Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosoves. Notwithstanding that I've practiced this,

14 I'm sure I didn't get it right. But this group, the UCK - or as it is

15 known in English, and this is what we're call it because it's easier to

16 say, the Kosovo Liberation Army - exposed a contrary position to

17 Dr. Rugova's LDK. The Kosovo Liberation Army advocated a policy of armed

18 insurgency and violent resistance to the Serb authorities in Kosovo.

19 The KLA began launching armed attacks, primarily against the

20 Serbian police forces in the mid and latter part of the 1990s. The

21 Serbian police responded forcefully with numerous operations against

22 suspected KLA bases and supporters in Kosovo, and the persecution of

23 Kosovo Albanians -- Albanian civilians became more common and widespread.

24 The alternating pattern of aggression by the KLA on the one hand and the

25 responses of the forces of the FRY and Serbia on the other continued

Page 178

1 throughout 1997 and 1998 with an ever-increasing cycle of violence.

2 And if I may pause just to touch upon two matters. First,

3 regarding use of the term "forces of the FRY and Serbia." This is a term

4 that's been defined in the indictment. It's a term to include not only

5 units of the army of the FRY, the Yugoslav Army or the VJ, as we will

6 call it from time to time, and of the Ministry of the Interior, that is,

7 the police, but also various military, territorial units, civil defence

8 units, village defence forces, which were armed locals, locals armed by

9 the police and VJ, and volunteer units attached to and assigned to or

10 otherwise incorporated into the VJ or the MUP. So it's an all-embracing

11 term.

12 Secondly, I will just say from early that the Prosecution readily

13 accepts that grave crimes, very grave crimes, were committed by members

14 of the KLA against the Serbian civilians, the police and other ethnic

15 groups, including Kosovo Albanians who were loyal to the Serbian state.

16 Indeed, the OTP has proffered indictments against several of the members

17 of the KLA for these offences. This case is about the other side of the

18 coin, the crimes committed by the forces of the FRY and Serbia against

19 the Kosovo Albanian civilians. Any attempt by the accused to justify his

20 conduct or that of the forces under his command on the grounds that

21 offences of a similar character may have been committed against civilians

22 by another party to the conflict has no basis, it is submitted, in the

23 jurisprudence of this Tribunal.

24 At the beginning of 1996 and 1997, the KLA was a small, poorly

25 armed and disorganised group. Most of its leadership was abroad. But

Page 179

1 due in part to the availability of additional weapons following a

2 collapse of law and order in neighbouring Albania at about that time, and

3 an ever-growing number of volunteers, the KLA in 1998 grew to include

4 several thousand members and to become more and more active against the

5 Serb police. Indeed, it, by 1998, controlled significant parts of the

6 territory of Kosovo. And not only were actions directed against the

7 police but also against Kosovo Albanians, as I said before, loyal to the

8 Serb authorities.

9 So the conflict intensified, and the Serb response to KLA

10 activities was widely viewed as being disproportionate and amounting to

11 excessive and indiscriminate force against Kosovo Albanian civilians.

12 Villages and towns where there were KLA positions were shelled and the

13 residents were driven away. The problem was significant enough by then

14 to gain international attention.

15 Significantly, in March 1998, Serb forces carried out an

16 operation in the Srbica municipality, attacking the family compound of a

17 notable KLA activist, one Adem Jashari, in the village of Donji Prekaz,

18 killing over 50 people, including Jashari and his entire family, except

19 for an 11-year-old girl.

20 Now, in using the word "compound," or "family compound," the

21 expression "family compound," I am describing a particular feature of

22 Kosovo Albanian architecture that you will hear more about in the course

23 of the trial. It's the fairly common practice of different family units

24 that are part of one extended family, sometimes of several generations,

25 living in separate houses built within one family compound that it

Page 180

1 supports sounded by a wall. It doesn't mean that the Jashari family

2 compound was a military fortification of some sort.

3 And I will also add that it is doubtless that several persons on

4 the compound had been involved in KLA activity. However, the brutal,

5 excessive, and indiscriminate nature of the assault shocked the

6 conscience of many observers, both local and international.

7 In March 1998, the United Nations Security Council issued

8 Resolution 1160 which condemned, and I quote, "the excessive --" sorry,

9 may I begin again, quote, "the excessive use --" I will start over the

10 quote. Quote:

11 "The use of excessive force by the Serbian police forces against

12 civilians and peaceful demonstrators in Kosovo."

13 This resolution will be put in evidence. It's the Prosecution's

14 submission that the accused, as chief of the police, was aware of the

15 excessive force and aware of the international condemnation of it. The

16 resolution also condemned the violence, indiscriminate violence, by the

17 KLA.

18 Despite the March 1998 United Nations resolution condemning their

19 practices, the forces of the FRY and Serbia not only continued with their

20 operations against the KLA, including against the civilian population in

21 areas where KLA operated, but increased the ferocity and intensity of

22 that campaign.

23 In July 1998, the forces of the FRY and Serbia began a

24 large-scale offensive throughout the entire province of Kosovo. The

25 operation included among others various brigades of the VJ's

Page 181

1 Pristina Corps and special units of the MUP.

2 It is interesting to note here that the month before the launch

3 of this big summer offensive we see the creation of the Joint Command for

4 Kosovo and Metohija, as it was known, and which will play an important

5 role in future operations in Kosovo, and it will we discussed a little

6 further on.

7 The mandate of the Joint Command was to coordinate civil affairs

8 and activities and also coordinate the activities of the police and the

9 army when they're engaged in operations in Kosovo. The Joint Command had

10 no official role or legitimacy in Serbian law or the constitution, but

11 its role and importance is reflected by a VJ military order dated the 7th

12 of July, 1998, from the commander of the 125th Motorised Brigade,

13 declaring a ban on all operations without the knowledge and approval of

14 the Joint Command. So this unofficial ad hoc body, of which the accused

15 was a member, was involved in and responsible for coordinating the

16 activities of the security forces in Kosovo in 1998.

17 The Joint Command meetings occurred on almost a daily basis

18 during the big offensive from July to October 1998, and the accused

19 regularly attended meetings, along with some of his former co-accused,

20 Sainovic, Pavkovic, and Lukic. We expect that the evidence led in

21 respect to the events of 1998 and the accused's role and statements he

22 made at Joint Command meetings will show that he was aware of the

23 excessive and indiscriminate force directed against Kosovar Albanian

24 civilians by forces of the FRY and Serbia, including the police for whom

25 he was responsible.

Page 182

1 We will tender minutes of these meetings where the discussion of

2 the use of excessive force was commonplace, and we will at the

3 appropriate stage submit that it shows that he was aware of the

4 likelihood that the forces that he commanded would commit crimes of the

5 nature that are charged.

6 In the face of this continuing campaign of disproportionate force

7 of the civilian population in Kosovo, the United Nations Security Council

8 adopted another resolution on the 23rd of September, 1998. This was

9 Resolution 1199 and it called for an immediate cease-fire in Kosovo, an

10 international presence to monitor that cease-fire, and the withdrawal of

11 security forces used for civilian repression.

12 This resolution and the increasing outcry on both the domestic

13 and international fronts forced the FRY government to engage in

14 international negotiations in 1998. You will hear some detailed evidence

15 about those negotiations which occurred. These talks resulted in a

16 number of agreements, the so-called October Agreements, signed by the

17 representatives of the FRY, Serbia, NATO, and the Organisation for

18 Security and Co-operation in Europe. The accused was one of the key

19 participants from the Serbian side on behalf of the police, during the

20 course of these negotiations.

21 Key provisions insisted upon by the international interlocutors

22 were the cessation of the use of excessive and indiscriminate force

23 against the civilian population and the reduction of VJ and MUP forces in

24 Kosovo. The agreement also called for the creation and deployment of a

25 verification mission from the OSCE to be called the Kosovo Verification

Page 183

1 Mission, which consisted of unarmed observers deployed in the province to

2 verify compliance with the terms of the agreement. And you will hear

3 testimony from several of these members as to what transpired after the

4 coming into force of these agreements.

5 It is to be noted that a United Nations report found that by the

6 end of October 1998, approximately 285.000 Kosovo Albanians had been

7 displaced from their homes, either internally in Kosovo, some camping out

8 in mountains, forests, fields, and in other villages; and some had been

9 displaced across the border into neighbouring countries. And one should

10 note here the early estimates of the population, 285.000 persons out of

11 the Kosovo Albanian population amounts approximately one in six persons

12 being forced out of their homes in 1998, and this was highlighted by the

13 international community and must have been within the awareness of the

14 accused, who was one of the leading Serbian negotiators with the

15 international community.

16 The October Agreements, unfortunately, did not achieve the

17 hoped-for results. There was some initially withdrawals of Serb forces

18 in the beginning. However, the KLA quickly moved in to fill the void in

19 those areas and remained active against forces of the FRY and Serbia. By

20 December, the numbers of Serb forces were on the rise again. From their

21 arrival in November 1998 until their departure in March 1999, the KVM

22 observers noted in addition to operations against the KLA there was

23 ongoing violence by forces of the FRY and Serbia against the civilian

24 population.

25 This included an operation in January 1999 in the area of Racak,

Page 184

1 which left 40 Kosovar Albanians dead, and that event helped spur the

2 ongoing efforts to stop the violence in Kosovo.

3 There were international meetings, including an international

4 peace conference in Rambouillet in Paris, France, in March 1999. During

5 these negotiations the fighting in Kosovo continued. The Rambouillet

6 negotiations, I should say, were in February 1999. The talks eventually

7 collapsed in Paris in mid-March 1999.

8 With the failure of the negotiations, the KVM verifiers withdraw

9 from Kosovo. On the 23rd of March, 1999, a declaration of an imminent

10 threat of war was proclaimed by the FRY. The next day, the 24th of

11 March, 1999, the NATO bombing campaign began in Kosovo and elsewhere in

12 Serbia and the FRY parliament declared a state of war.

13 So we see over the period of 1990s increasing violence and

14 increasing determination on the KLA side by acts of violence, often

15 illegal and criminal, to dislodge the Serbian state from Kosovo and the

16 violent responses by the Serbian authorities. It was by then becoming

17 clear that drastic measures had to be taken in order to resolve the

18 Kosovo issue.

19 And from early as February 1999, members of the JCE had already

20 begun planning the joint police and VJ operations which were later

21 undertaken in order to achieve their aim of modifying the ethnic balance

22 under the guise of crushing the KLA. We will see that the accused was

23 integrally involved in the planning of these operations. When the

24 opportunity arose, the members of the JCE acted by launching large-scale

25 joint operations using the forces of the FRY and Serbia. The JCE's

Page 185

1 objective of modifying the ethnic balance to maintain Serbian control in

2 the province, that is, by depopulating Kosovo of a significant proportion

3 of the Albanians living there, was largely achieved by the end of April,

4 although some more isolated operations continued to occur after this.

5 Who were the major players in this drama? The evidence will show

6 that many of the important leaders in the Serbian and Yugoslav state

7 played a part in bringing into effect this JCE.

8 Of course, first and foremost for the purposes of this trial is

9 the accused Vlastimir Djordjevic, whose formal position is set out in

10 detail in the indictment and the pre-trial brief. At the material time

11 he was posted at the MUP headquarters in Belgrade as an Assistant

12 Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Serbia, and he was chief

13 of the Public Security Department of the police, that is, the regular

14 uniformed police side of the MUP. There was another department in the

15 MUP, the State Security Department, called the RDB, which was akin to a

16 secret service involving intelligence-gathering. We'll talk more about

17 these departments later on when we discuss the MUP.

18 But suffice it to say for now that as Chief of the Public

19 Security Department of the MUP, that is, the RJB, the accused Djordjevic

20 had overall responsibility for and exercised control over the police

21 units on the ground in Kosovo that participated in committing the crimes

22 charged in this indictment. He reported directly to the Minister of

23 Interior, that is, Mr. Stojiljkovic.

24 Mr. Djordjevic had originally been indicted with six others who

25 we say were also participants in the joint criminal enterprise:

Page 186

1 Milan Milutinovic, Nikola Sainovic, Dragoljub Ojdanic, Nebojsa Pavkovic,

2 Vladimir Lazarevic, and Sreten Lukic. But before I come to briefly

3 describing who they were and what their positions were, may I start, it

4 is convenient I think to start from the top.

5 Slobodan Milosevic, who should be on the screen now. No

6 account - no account - of the conflict in Kosovo in 1999 could be told

7 without mentioning him. He was the President of the FRY, the undisputed

8 leader, and without question the most powerful individual in the country

9 at the time the crimes alleged in the indictment were committed. His

10 role in the JCE was that of the paramount leader, the one who gave

11 orders, the primary planner and instigator.

12 Milosevic surrounded himself with loyal followers who shared his

13 views about the importance of Kosovo to Serbia and who could be relied

14 upon to take the necessary actions to modify the ethnic balance in Kosovo

15 in order to maintain Serbian control in the province.

16 He was not only the President of the FRY but he was also the

17 President of the most powerful political party in Serbia at the time, the

18 SPS, and thus had significant de jure and de facto ability to affect and

19 control operations within the various organs of government, the military,

20 and the police.

21 Next is Milan Milutinovic, a former co-indictee of the accused.

22 Milutinovic was a high-ranking member of the SPS and a close associate of

23 Slobodan Milosevic. He was President of Serbia, one of the constituent

24 states of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from December 1997 until

25 December 2002. The other state in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, I

Page 187

1 should mention, at that time was Montenegro. As President of Serbia,

2 Milutinovic was one of the three voting members of the Supreme Defence

3 Council, an important body that was responsible for organising security

4 of the country. Milutinovic's prominent position as President of Serbia,

5 as a member of the SDC and the Supreme Command, together with his close

6 association with Milosevic and his high status in the SPS, the party in

7 power, combined to give him substantial de jure power and de facto

8 influence and control over the army, the police, and other organs and

9 individuals engaged in implementing the objectives of the JCE.

10 Nikola Sainovic is the next. By all accounts he was an even

11 closer confidante of Milosevic and considered part of Milosevic's inner

12 circle. From 1994 to 2000 he held the post of Deputy Prime Minister of

13 the FRY. In 1998 and 1999, Sainovic was Milosevic's personal choice to

14 be delegated with primary responsibility for Kosovo matters. He was also

15 head of the Joint Command and he exercised authority and control over the

16 forces of the FRY and Serbia operating on the ground in Kosovo in his

17 capacity as head of the Joint Command.

18 Three of the accused Djordjevic's co-indictees were commanders of

19 the Yugoslav Army, the VJ. The VJ acted in coordination with the police

20 in the commission of many of the crimes charged in the indictment. It

21 was a modern professional army which, in acting in coordination with

22 other elements of the forces of the FRY in Serbia, played a vital role in

23 the implementation of the JCE.

24 If we briefly look down the chain of command from the top, I

25 should point out first that the constitution of the FRY and federal

Page 188

1 legislation provided that the overall command of the VJ was the FRY

2 president, then Milosevic.

3 Below him you'll see on your screen General Dragoljub Ojdanic.

4 He was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the VJ by Milosevic on the

5 24th of November, 1998, and remained in that position during the

6 indictment period. As Chief of the VJ's General Staff, he was the

7 highest ranking, most authoritative officer in the VJ, and exercised the

8 highest professional military level of command and effective control over

9 the three services of the VJ - the land forces, the air and air defence

10 forces, and the navy.

11 Below him in the chain of command was General Nebojsa Pavkovic.

12 The land forces of the VJ, specifically the Third Army then under the

13 control of General Pavkovic, is most relevant to the events in Kosovo in

14 1999. Pavkovic was appointed Commander of the Third Army on the

15 25th of December, 1998, and remained in that post throughout 1999. He

16 was also a member of the Joint Command of Kosovo in 1998 and 1999.

17 Kosovo was the area of responsibility of a unit of the Third Army

18 known as the Pristina Corps, and the Pristina Corps was commanded by

19 General Vladimir Lazarevic, who you will see coming up on your screen

20 now. He was appointed Commander of the Pristina Corps on the

21 25th of December, 1998. He was also an active member of and participated

22 in the Joint Command in Kosovo.

23 In this particular trial, you will probably be more interested in

24 the role of the MUP and its leadership, this accused being a former

25 senior commander thereof.

Page 189

1 And so I come to the sixth co-indictee, or former co-indictee of

2 the accused, that is, Sreten Lukic. From June 1998 throughout 1999,

3 Lukic was head of the MUP Staff in Kosovo. We will hear a little bit

4 more on the MUP Staff later on. As such he was the highest ranking MUP

5 official posted in Kosovo. He commanded MUP operations in Kosovo and was

6 also a member and participant in the meetings and decision-making of the

7 Joint Command. As head of the MUP Staff for Kosovo, Sreten Lukic

8 exercised command authority and effective control over MUP units deployed

9 in Kosovo and those units subordinated to the MUP for operations in

10 Kosovo. He was a direct subordinate of the accused Djordjevic.

11 Other senior MUP officials of interest include

12 Vlajko Stojiljkovic, now deceased. He was a Minister of Internal Affairs

13 of Serbia at the material time. We allege that he was a member of the

14 JCE, and his name will be mentioned often in the course of this trial.

15 As the Minister of Internal affairs, he was the political head of the MUP

16 and had responsibility for the work of the MUP and its personnel during

17 the time-frame of this indictment.

18 We will also hear a lot about Obrad Stevanovic, who was an

19 assistant Minister of Police who headed the Police Administration, a

20 sub-division of the Public Security Division. He was frequently on the

21 ground in Kosovo during the indictment period, coordinating the

22 operations of special units of the MUP. And he again is someone that you

23 will hear mentioned quite often in the course of this trial.

24 Next, Radomir Markovic. He was also an Assistant Minister of the

25 MUP, on the same level of the accused Djordjevic. The MUP, as I

Page 190

1 indicated earlier, had two branchs: the Public Security Division, that's

2 the RJB, and the State Security Division, the RDB. The State Security

3 Division was headed by Markovic, and it was primarily involved in

4 performing the task of collecting information and intelligence relating

5 to state security of the Republic of Serbia.

6 If we could take a closer look at the organisation of the MUP

7 with a chart which I wish to put before you. This is the organisation of

8 the MUP in so far as it relates to Kosovo.

9 The Ministry of the Interior was mandated by Serbian law to

10 protect human lives and the safety of persons and their possessions and

11 to maintain law and order.

12 The RJB side of the MUP, that's public security side of the MUP,

13 that Djordjevic was chief of, comprised of the ordinary uniformed police

14 who did regular day-to-day police work of crime-prevention,

15 investigation, enforcement of traffic laws, border control, and the

16 normal operation of the police.

17 I think that the Court could take particular note that the police

18 involved in border control were under the supervision or were

19 subordinated to this accused. We will see that in respect to the

20 deportation offences, what happened at the borders and the conduct of the

21 police at the borders was of great importance.

22 In addition to the police officers conducting normal police work,

23 the RJB also had special units which were heavily armed and specially

24 trained and equipped to conduct operations, including combat, which could

25 not be done by the regular police. Witnesses will tell you that these

Page 191

1 police were often armed with armoured personnel carriers, mortars,

2 grenades, and other weapons we might not normally associate with the

3 police.

4 In Kosovo in 1998 and 1999, the following special units of the

5 RJB were actively engaged: The main special unit was called, simply, the

6 Special Police Units, or the PJP, as we'll hear it being referred to

7 quite frequently. There's also the Operational Sweep Groups, or the

8 OPGs. And the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit, or the SAJ, which was a

9 highly elite combat unit of the police.

10 The state security side of the MUP which the accused controlled

11 also -- I'm sorry. The state security side of the MUP was controlled by

12 Markovic, Radomir Markovic, and that side controlled a special unit of

13 its own which was engaged also in operations in Kosovo. This was called

14 the Special Operations Unit. Most witnesses, particularly police

15 officers, will refer to it by its acronym, the JSO.

16 On the chart you'll see that all of these units fell under the

17 MUP Staff for Kosovo, and many of these units, you'll hear from the

18 evidence, were involved in much of the activities resulting in the crimes

19 that were committed against the Kosovo Albanian population.

20 These units reported up to the accused through the MUP Staff in

21 Kosovo, headed by Lukic, and they reported up to the accused sometimes

22 directly. We intend to tender several orders issued by the accused

23 deploying these units or personnel of these units in Kosovo which we say

24 demonstrate his overall command role over these units as chief of the

25 RJB.

Page 192

1 For example, one of the dispatches we intend to bring before the

2 Court is one of the accused of the 21st of March, 1999, where he deployed

3 a company of PJPs from Subotica in Serbia proper to the 23rd PJP

4 detachment in Kosovo. This was on the 21st of March, 1999. The unit

5 deployed was actively engaged in operations in the Orahovac municipality.

6 This is where Bela Crkva and Mala Krusa are located, and we will hear in

7 evidence of the massacres that were committed there in those two villages

8 by the police on the 25th of March.

9 So the accused had overall responsibility for all these police

10 units operating in Kosovo. In addition to all this, the MUP had

11 reservists to supplement its regular contingent. MUP reservists formed

12 the core of local defence units established in many parts of Kosovo.

13 Within Kosovo province, the standard work of MUP was divided on a

14 geographical basis. If we could go back to the graphic, the chart, we'll

15 see at the bottom of the chart the seven separate regional secretariats

16 of the interior, as they were called, and often in this case they'll be

17 referred to merely as SUPs by some of the witnesses, each responsible for

18 RJB tasks in the municipalities making up Kosovo provinces. So the SUPs

19 would be the police headquarters governing several municipalities in

20 Kosovo.

21 The SUPs, shown at the bottom of the chart, reported up the chain

22 of command, sometimes through the Joint Command, sometimes through the

23 MUP Staff for Kosovo, and sometimes directly to the MUP headquarters in

24 Belgrade.

25 If we can look at the seven -- you will see the seven areas or

Page 193

1 geographic areas in Kosovo where these SUPs were organisationally

2 responsible for. And the next map will show the municipalities that was

3 covered in each of these regions by the seven SUPs in Kosovo.

4 In addition to the role of the SUPs, you will hear much evidence

5 in this case about the role of command and control organs over the forces

6 of the FRY and Serbia, particularly the MUP Staff for Kosovo and Metohija

7 and the Joint Command for Kosovo and Metohija.

8 The MUP Staff for Kosovo was located in Pristina and from

9 June 1998 through to June 1999 was headed by Sreten Lukic. Its purpose

10 was to manage and coordinate the work of the MUP on the suppression of

11 terrorism in Kosovo and to organise and direct the work of the MUP units

12 when performing more complex security tasks in the province.

13 The MUP Staff in Kosovo included RDB members, as well as the

14 department heads in Kosovo and also the chiefs of the seven regional SUPs

15 in Kosovo. As head of the MUP Staff for Kosovo, in 1998 Lukic was

16 required to report to the Minister of Internal Affairs, Stojiljkovic. He

17 also reported to the accused Djordjevic, his immediate superior. Daily

18 situation reports went to, among others, the minister, the assistant

19 minister, including this accused as head of the RJB. And as I pointed

20 out, in addition to these regular daily reports, the seven regional SUPs

21 were required to report significant events not only to the MUP Staff in

22 Pristina but also directly to the MUP headquarters in Belgrade. This

23 reporting regime was supplemented by the fact that MUP higher-ups, such

24 as the minister himself, the accused Djordjevic, and the Head of Police

25 Administration Obrad Stevanovic sometimes attended meetings of the MUP

Page 194

1 Staff in Kosovo.

2 I have already made mention of the Joint Command. I should just

3 pause here to point out and to alert you to the existence of another body

4 that was sometimes referred to as the Joint Command. During 1998 and

5 1999 in Belgrade, there existed an ad hoc body composed of high-ranking

6 military, political, and police officials that met and discussed matters

7 relating to the events and actions in Kosovo. The participants included

8 Milosevic, Sainovic, Ojdanic, Pavkovic, and the accused Djordjevic, and

9 sometimes Minister Stojiljkovic. This body had no apparent basis in law

10 nor an official title. In addition to Joint Command, it was sometimes

11 referred to as the "State Commission" or the "Inter-Departmental Staff

12 for the Suppression of Terrorism." This group that met in Belgrade is to

13 be distinguished from the Joint Command of Kosovo and Metohija, which met

14 in Kosovo, in Pristina. When we, the Prosecution, use the term "Joint

15 Command," we will be talking about the body in Kosovo, and references to

16 the Belgrade group will be specifically noted in a fashion so that they

17 can be distinguished.

18 If I could turn now, Your Honours, with your leave, to the crimes

19 alleged.

20 The accused is charged with persecutions, forced transfers,

21 deportations, and murders committed in the first half of 1999 in Kosovo.

22 The evidence will show that at the material time there was an ongoing

23 armed conflict in Kosovo, at first between the forces of the FRY and

24 Serbia on the one hand and the KLA on the other hand; later between the

25 forces of the FRY and Serbia on the one hand and NATO and the KLA on the

Page 195

1 other.

2 During this conflict thousands of Kosovo Albanian civilians and

3 non-combatants were killed by forces of the FRY and Serbia. As many as

4 800.000 were forcibly transferred and deported. That, Your Honours, is

5 one out of three of the total population of Kosovo and one out of two of

6 the Kosovo Albanian population of Kosovo.

7 You know, Your Honours, from the indictment, the pre-trial brief,

8 and my earlier comments of chronology leading up to 1999 that the crimes

9 in 1999 are just the final chapter in a campaign of persecutions and

10 executing violence engaged in by the forces of FRY and Serbia and their

11 leaders to try and maintain physical and political control of the

12 province of Kosovo in the face of ever-growing demands by the Kosovo

13 Albanian majority for increasing autonomy and independence.

14 In only one week between the 24th of March, 1999 and the 30th of

15 March, 1999, United Nations data reflect that some 94.000 Kosovars fled

16 Albania. Many reported that they did not know where their men were as

17 they had been separated from them at the time they were expelled. That

18 will be a common theme in the expulsions. Many reported that they had

19 been deliberately expelled and explicitly told to leave and that their

20 homes had been destroyed by Serb forces. Many reported that they had to

21 leave on little or no notice at all, forced to flee at night, on foot, in

22 freezing temperatures, often with nothing more than the clothes on their

23 backs and whatever few things they could grab to carry in their hands as

24 they rushed out of the door. Many reported having been rounded up by

25 Serb forces and put on trains or buses to be taken to the border for

Page 196

1 expulsion to Albania or Macedonia.

2 Your Honours, if I could at this brief moment preface my comments

3 by showing a video of one of these convoys, without any sound, and I

4 think it should not take too long, perhaps a couple of minutes.

5 [Video-clip played]

6 MR. STAMP: Thank you very much. We submit, Your Honours, that

7 the vast majority of these refugees fled because of actions of the VJ,

8 the MUP, and other forces of the FRY and Serbia.

9 From the 24th of March, 1999, following the evacuation of the KVM

10 monitors and the onset of the NATO bombing campaign, the forces of the

11 FRY and Serbia seized the moment to step up their campaign of ethnic

12 cleansing.

13 All across Kosovo, in a concerted and coordinated manner, the

14 forces of the FRY and Serbia began their widespread and systematic attack

15 on the Kosovo Albanian civilian population, forcing them out of Kosovo.

16 The evidence will show that a typical pattern occurred in many

17 municipalities. The Serb forces -- the Serbian forces would nearly --

18 would encircle a village or town and leave one avenue of escape. The VJ

19 would commence shelling with artillery and heavy weapons. Then MUP

20 units, including special units and volunteers incorporated into the MUP

21 or otherwise attached to the MUP, would enter the town, force the people

22 out, sometimes killing and raping as they did so, often looting and

23 burning the abandoned homes. As I said, the destruction of the homes was

24 to ensure that the expelled population would have nothing to return to.

25 And this type of activity understandably created an atmosphere of

Page 197

1 terror, and the inhabitants of neighbouring villages, seeing this happen

2 and hearing the stories of the primary victims, would join in fleeing to

3 avoid the same fate happening to them. And so we saw those massive

4 convoys in the international media at the end of March 1999, as thousands

5 and thousands, hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanian civilians

6 literally fled for their lives.

7 Of particular note on this point, you will hear evidence of many

8 of the witnesses, many of the refugees, about how on route out of the

9 country and at the border forces of the FRY and Serbia, including the

10 border police, regularly forced them to hand over their identity

11 documents and vehicle licence plates and leave them behind.

12 Now, why should these people be forced to hand over their

13 identity documents? We suggest that this is a clear manifestation of the

14 objective of the JCE to modify the ethnic balance of Kosovo in order to

15 maintain Serbian control. Once outside of the country and with no

16 official identity documents, these refugees would have severe

17 difficulties if they ever attempted to return to Kosovo, as the Serb

18 authorities could simply claim that they were illegal immigrants.

19 The indictment reflects the widespread nature of this campaign.

20 It includes 11 killing sites and 13 deportation sites.

21 I'd like to note at this point that the crimes that are

22 specifically detailed in the indictment are arranged according to

23 established offences, such as deportation or murder. That's really a

24 breakdown for the purposes of facilitating analysis of individual crimes

25 in the indictment rather than necessarily reflecting any divergence

Page 198

1 between the deportations and the murders on the ground. So when we see

2 references to deportation sites and references to killing sites, this is

3 not to suggest that they are separate offences or separate events. They

4 are integrated, obviously. Before and during the deportations, killings

5 occurred as well.

6 Further, the 11 killing sites and 13 deportation sites are not a

7 complete list of all the crimes reported to investigators but rather

8 these were selected as a representative sample sufficient, we think, to

9 show the existence of a pattern and to reflect the scope and nature of

10 the campaign conducted throughout the province.

11 Now, if we could look at the criminal sites generally on the

12 screen. These are the killing sites as reflected in the indictment.

13 The witnesses whose evidence we propose to adduce in respect to

14 these sites and these murders are the fortunate ones. They escaped with

15 their lives. Many of their relatives, sometimes their entire families,

16 their neighbours, did not survive the expulsion campaign to tell the

17 tale. Their stories will have to be told by the ones who did survive and

18 also from the grave by the evidence of forensic pathologist, forensic

19 anthropologists, and DNA experts who sedulously analysed bits of human

20 remains, bone, fabric, and identification documents during months and

21 years of exhumations all over Kosovo and other burial sites in Serbia

22 proper. I will go through some of not all of them in order to give you a

23 sketch of the pattern of what happened in many of these murder sites and

24 how the evidence fits together.

25 If we could look first at Bela Crkva, just to identify where that

Page 199

1 is in Kosovo, towards the south, perhaps the south-west, and this is in

2 the municipality of Orahovac, one of the municipalities where many of the

3 crimes, some not recounted in the indictment, but many crimes against the

4 Kosovo Albanian population occurred, in that municipality.

5 At the village of Bela Crkva, on the 25th of March, 1999, forces

6 of the FRY and Serbia attacked the villagers. Many of the villagers fled

7 along a small river and hid under a railroad bridge. Serbian police

8 opened fire on one group of villagers heading for the bridge, killing

9 about 12 people, ten of whom were women and children. The remaining

10 villagers were ordered out of the stream-bed and from under the bridge.

11 The men and older boys were separated, ordered to strip and then robbed

12 of their valuables and identity documents. The women and children were

13 ordered to leave to another nearby village. The village doctor tried to

14 intercede with the police commander, but he and his nephew were shot and

15 killed on the spot. The remaining boys and men were then ordered back

16 into the stream-bed. The Serbian forces, the police then opened fire,

17 killing some 65 of them. Some survived and lived to tell the tale. This

18 is a theme that you will see in many situations because these were large

19 massacres. Many times persons survived.

20 The village itself was later destroyed, but subsequent

21 exhumations after the conflict, when international investigators were

22 allowed back into Kosovo, recovered the bodies of 54 of the victims. The

23 post mortem examination revealed the cause of death in 98 percent of the

24 cases was related to gun-shot wounds.

25 We have on the screen a map of Bela Crkva. I indicated that the

Page 200

1 village itself was destroyed. You can see on the map the left, the

2 building intact is on the 11th of March, 1999, and that on the right is

3 on the 2nd of April, 1999. You can see the tremendous devastation in the

4 area. I should point out that the map, the second map, is reversed

5 180 degrees, but it is not difficult to identify where we are. If we

6 look at the river, if we use as the point of reference the river, that

7 is, the dark semi-circular line to the right of the map and the white

8 building in the centre of the map, you can see that the -- both maps

9 depict the same place at different times, one with the buildings and the

10 other with the devastation. Thank you.

11 Next we could move on to Mala Krusa. This is a neighbouring

12 village of Bela Crkva in Orahovac. The map just indicates where it is in

13 Kosovo.

14 On the same day, a few kilometres from Bela Crkva in Mala Krusa,

15 the forces of the FRY and Serbia also attacked that village. The

16 villagers fled into the nearby forest from where they could see the

17 attackers looting and burning their houses. The next morning, on the

18 26th of March, the Serbian forces located many of the villagers on the

19 outskirts of Mala Krusa. They ordered the women and children to leave

20 and to go to Albania, the common theme. They detained and searched the

21 men and older boys and robbed them of their valuables and identity

22 documents. The forces of the FRY and Serbia then forced the men and

23 older boys into a nearby cow-shed and began firing upon them with

24 machine-guns. They then set the shed on fire. Approximately 100 were

25 killed in that massacre, and we obviously will not have forensics for

Page 201

1 that, or forensic reports for that site as the victims were burnt in the

2 fire.

3 If we could move on next to Suva Reka, and the map here shows

4 where it is in Kosovo.

5 Also on the 26th of March, the same day as the attack in

6 Bela Crkva and Mala Krusa in Orahovac, policemen from the Suva Reka

7 police station surrounded the Berisha family compound in Suva Reka town,

8 the largest town in the municipality, and ordered the occupants out of

9 one of the houses. Four men were killed on the spot and the remaining

10 family members, mostly the elderly women and children, ran and took

11 refuge in a coffee shop or a pizzeria. There they were fired upon by the

12 police. Explosives were also thrown into the shop where the victims

13 were.

14 I would like to show you an aerial photograph, if you will, of

15 the area. You will see the arrow showing you where the house -- the

16 houses of the Berishas were, where the police station is; and if you look

17 in the middle of the map, you will see a straight line coming down and

18 ending at a structure beside three vats. That is where the pizzeria is,

19 or was located. So you get an idea of the location of these premises,

20 notably that the police station is basically across a road about

21 150 metres from where these women and children were massacred. After the

22 massacre, probably in order to conceal the crime and the blood that

23 remained in the pizzeria, the shop was -- fire was set to the shop.

24 If we look on the screen, we can see what the destroyed coffee

25 shop looked like after the bodies were removed and it was set ablaze.

Page 202

1 [Video-clip played]

2 MR. STAMP: You will see the pockmarks of automatic weapons on

3 the walls. And there was damage from the explosives that were thrown

4 inside.

5 The women and children and the elderly had sought refuge in the

6 shop, but at least 47 of them were killed inside that shop, 15 women and

7 17 children included. The police and members of the civil defence

8 arranged then for the disposal of the bodies. The bodies of the victims

9 were thrown in the rear of two trucks which drove off in the direction of

10 the town of Prizren. Unbeknown to the assailants, not all were killed.

11 Amazingly there were three survivors - two little children -- or two

12 women and a small child who pretended to be dead and was thrown into the

13 truck. While the truck was driving, they managed to escape by crawling

14 out from among the bodies and jumping off the truck, and we will hear

15 live testimony from some of those survivors.

16 You will also hear about where these bodies of these women and

17 children were eventually found, where they ended up. Remains of the

18 Berisha family killed on that day were found in two different locations.

19 I have just been advised -- Your Honours, I've just been advised

20 that it might well be time for the break, to facilitate the recording.

21 JUDGE PARKER: I was watching and waiting for you to come to a

22 convenient point to pause. This obviously is it. We must, for those who

23 are new to the trial process here, break at about one and a half hours

24 for half an hour to allow the recording machines, visual and sound, to be

25 rewound and reordered and to allow those who are providing the

Page 203

1 interpretation to have a break, and we will establish regular approximate

2 times for those breaks as the trial progresses. At about an hour and a

3 half, those breaks will be established.

4 So we must adjourn now for the first of them, resuming at 11.00.

5 We now adjourn.

6 --- Recess taken at 10.30 a.m.

7 --- On resuming at 11.01 a.m.

8 JUDGE PARKER: Yes, Mr. Stamp.

9 MR. STAMP: Thank you, Your Honour, if it pleases you.

10 When we last broke off, I was discussing what happened to the

11 bodies of the members of the Berisha family that were killed at Suva Reka

12 and loaded in a truck, or in two trucks and driven off towards Prizren

13 that day.

14 Your Honours, you will hear that remains of some of the family

15 members that were killed that day were found in two different locations.

16 Some were exhumed at a military firing range located just outside the

17 town of Prizren. Secondly, remains later identified by DNA analysis as

18 belonging to some 24 Berisha family members, as well as a foetus - one of

19 the victims of the massacre was pregnant, I should inform the Court, so a

20 foetus was also found - they were found in a clandestine grave-site at

21 the police training centre, the training centre for the SAJ, the

22 Special Elite Police Force of the Serbian MUP at Batajnica near Belgrade,

23 in Serbia. This was in 2001.

24 It appears, Your Honour, from examination of the forensic reports

25 that some of the persons who were initially buried at the firing range in

Page 204

1 Prizren in Kosovo were disinterred, removed from there, and reburied at

2 the SAJ firing range at Batajnica, near Serbia.

3 Now, there is much significance in that, Your Honours, and I want

4 to pause to show you a graphic that will enable you to understand more

5 clearly the distances we are talking about. It's easy to understand for

6 those familiar with the geography of the Netherlands and The Hague. You

7 will see that the distance from Suva Reka to Batajnica in Serbia proper

8 is just about the distance from The Hague to Luxembourg, a distance of

9 almost 300 kilometres.

10 How did these bodies get from Suva Reka to Belgrade, some 285

11 kilometres away? And not just to Belgrade, not just to any piece of

12 ground, but to police property, to the police training ground, the

13 Special Elite Units training ground that had strictly limited access?

14 Why would dead Albanian civilians, women and children, be taken away and

15 hidden there like that? And who had the means and opportunity to do

16 that? And what motive was involved that would take one to go to such

17 logistical lengths during a state of war, that involved so much resources

18 not only in Kosovo but in Serbia property, resources of manned trucks and

19 fuel to accomplish that task?

20 This evidence, Your Honour, reflects guilty knowledge, guilty

21 knowledge that these were the victims of murder and the murders were

22 committed in the course of a criminal enterprise. More, a little bit

23 more on the mass graves later on, if I may, Your Honour.

24 If I could move on to the crime site of Podujevo. On the map you

25 will see Podujevo is a town on the other side of Serbia, the north of

Page 205

1 Serbia -- I beg your pardon, the north of the province of Kosovo.

2 On the 28th of March, forces of the FRY and Serbia attacked

3 Podujevo, which is a small town, and began expelling Kosovo Albanian

4 civilians from their homes. A unit that was incorporated into the

5 police, into the special SAJ, known as the Scorpions, entered the village

6 and entered a house in the village and ordered a group of 19 women and

7 children from the Bogujevci, Duriqi, sorry, and Llugaliu families to

8 gather in the courtyard. They beat and shot at these people. At least

9 14 members of these families were killed and others were seriously

10 wounded in the shooting. Again, some were fortunate enough to survive,

11 and two survivors of that massacre, who were children at the time, as

12 well as one member of the police unit that perpetrated this assault will

13 testify at this trial. Again, this map indicates the local police

14 station was just a couple -- less than a couple hundred yards away.

15 Significantly, the accused was informed of this notorious crime

16 and the unit was withdrawn from Kosovo. There were some, what we say

17 are, token proceedings that were carried out. Nobody was punished. And

18 some two weeks later, the unit that committed this massacre, were again

19 redeployed into Kosovo by this accused and again featured in the

20 commission of war crimes against the Kosovo Albanian population.

21 If we could move to the municipality of Djakovica. Djakovica

22 town is the capital of Djakovica municipality, and one site there is

23 157 Milos Gilic Street.

24 On the night of the 1st to 2nd of April, 1999, forces of the FRY

25 and Serbia launched an operation against the Qerim -- I'm sorry, Qerim

Page 206

1 district in Djakovica town. Over the period of several hours they

2 forcibly entered houses of Kosovo Albanians, killed the occupants, and

3 then set the houses on fire. During that night, Serb policemen attacked

4 a house at 157 Milos Gilic Street. A group of 20 civilians, 19 of them

5 women and children, having heard of the approaching Serbian forces,

6 sought shelter in the basement of that house. The policemen forced them

7 out of the basement and into the house. They shot the civilians and set

8 fire to the house.

9 Your Honours will hear the harrowing account of the sole

10 survivor, who was only 10 years old at the time, who witnessed the

11 killings of his family and neighbours. He managed to escape by

12 pretending to be dead and jumped out of a window once the police had

13 left.

14 Next, I'd like to discuss the Izbica massacre. Izbica is a town

15 in the -- toward the centre of Kosovo, in the Srbica municipality.

16 There, on the 20th of March, forces of the FRY and Serbia began heavy

17 weapons firing on several villages in the area of Izbica. As many as

18 45.000 people fled the attack and gathered in a field near Izbica.

19 On the 20th of March, the forces of the FRY and Serbia surrounded

20 these displaced Kosovo Albanian civilians. The women and children were

21 ordered to leave and told to go to Albania. Two disabled elderly women

22 seated in a trailer were unable to walk. Serb forces set fire to the

23 trailer and burned these two women alive.

24 Again, the men were separated from the women and children and

25 then divided into two groups. One group was taken toward the woods and a

Page 207

1 stream where are they were told to kneel down and then the Serb forces

2 began shooting them. The second group was marched off in another

3 direction and made to line up before they, too, were shot. Miraculously,

4 there were survivors from both these mass executions, and you will hear

5 live from at least one of them. Over 116 men were killed that day in

6 Izbica.

7 A local doctor, Liri Loshi, who will testify here, filmed the

8 bodies for identification, and you'll see that in full later in the

9 evidence. Local villagers gathered the dead and buried them, but they

10 didn't stay buried for long. Dr. Loshi's video had been broadcast

11 internationally. It appears that the response of the Serb media was that

12 the video was fake, in effect denying that any massacre had occurred.

13 At any rate, between mid-May and the 3rd of June, 1999, the

14 Izbica killing victims were disinterred of what had previously been

15 presumed to be their final resting place. I have aerial photos of the

16 area. In the one before Your Honours, you'll see in the photo on the

17 left, the 9th of March, there's an area, a rectangular-shaped area on the

18 top of the photograph where you'll see that there are no graves. The

19 photograph to the right, 15th of April, 1999, shows that graves had been

20 built. There are rows of graves there.

21 It's probably clearer if one looks at the next graphic. That's

22 it. Thank you. This shows the graves, that a graveyard was there, 7th

23 of May, on the left, and on the right there were more graves added. This

24 is just a blow-up of the first photo -- photograph, aerial photograph.

25 And if we could look at the third aerial photograph. Again, this

Page 208

1 shows on the left the rows of graves, 15th of May, and on the right, the

2 photograph of the 3rd of June shows a dark spot. No more graves. The

3 graves had been disinterred, clearly, it is our submission as a result of

4 the international broadcast of Liri Loshi's videos of these dead persons.

5 On the 27th of June, 1999, an international forensic teams

6 entered Kosovo. A French forensic team examined the site at Izbica.

7 They found no bodies in the areas where the greaves had been, but they

8 did find evidence of human remains having been buried there at some time

9 in the recent past. An investigations showed later that on the 1st and

10 2nd of June, 1999, forces of the FRY and Serbia had returned to the

11 Izbica area and removed these bodies from the graves. Later on Serb

12 authorities in 2001 and 2002, when, as it will become clear in the

13 evidence, there was a different government in Serbia, the authorities

14 admitted that they had removed the bodies. The bodies were indeed

15 removed and there were some, it is submitted, token forensic analysis,

16 where the Prosecution at the appropriate time will urge on this Court

17 that the efforts in response of the international broadcast were merely

18 token because, again, the Court will hear evidence as to what became of

19 these bodies after they had been disinterred.

20 In 2001, some 20 of the victims from the Izbica massacre were

21 identified from human remains that were discovered in another clandestine

22 mass grave at another police training ground at a place called

23 Petrovo Selo in eastern Serbia, that is, outside of Kosovo, in Serbia

24 proper, near the border with Romania.

25 So, indeed, Your Honour, had the disinterment been for proper

Page 209

1 investigative purposes, these remains would not have been found, it is

2 our submission, and we would urge later on, at a clandestine mass

3 grave-site, hundreds of miles from where the massacre was committed.

4 This was in 2001.

5 So this is again evidence of an attempt to cover up a gross

6 crime. It suggests guilty knowledge on the part of those involved in the

7 cover-up. Like the Suva Reka situation, the persons were acting under

8 the authority, and I mean the persons involved in these cover-ups were

9 acting under the authority of this accused. They actually disinterred

10 the victims of the massacres and travelled -- transported them some 250

11 miles to conceal them in Petrovo Selo.

12 The last killing site - as I mentioned, today I will not go

13 through all of them - that I would like to discuss briefly is Meja. Meja

14 is a town in Djakovica, to the south-west of Kosovo, or maybe closer to

15 the central west, if I may call it that, of Kosovo.

16 In that municipality, on the 22nd -- 27th of April, 1999, forces

17 of the FRY and Serbia began a large-scale operation in the area of Erenik

18 and Trava River Valleys. On this map here, this topographical map, you

19 can see both of the river valleys. Those river valleys had many villages

20 occupied or populated by Kosovo Albanians, going right up towards the

21 north. That's the upper part of the photograph.

22 You will see a red dot in the middle of the map. That's

23 Djakovica town, and you will see the pointer, the blue pointer, to the

24 Erenik River. Right at the end of that pointer, where the arrow is, that

25 is the vicinity of where the town of Meja and Korenica, the towns, the

Page 210

1 twin towns of Meja and Korenica are located.

2 Kosovo Albanians began fleeing southward, down the mountain, down

3 the river valleys from their villages; and several convoys were formed.

4 In the vicinity of Meja, forces of the FRY and Serbia detained and

5 separated hundreds of Kosovo Albanian men from the fleeing convoys. And

6 you shall hear evidence, Your Honours, that many, many of them, were

7 summarily executed and that senior members of the police were involved in

8 participating in those executions.

9 According to international organisations which compiled data,

10 which will be tendered into evidence, over 344 men were not seen alive

11 again. Two years later, about 300 of these men, who were removed from

12 the convoys while attempting to flee down the hill, were identified by

13 way of DNA analysis in human remains found at the mass grave-site inside

14 the police grounds, again at Batajnica.

15 And there is, again, a map similarly indicating to you the

16 distance one would have to travel to take these bodies and hide them. It

17 involved a significant amount of arrangement, a significant amount of

18 logistics and coordination, not only of the police in Kosovo but also of

19 the police in Serbia proper, and that is indicative, Your Honours, that

20 somebody of the accused's rank and position, with command authority over

21 the entire police in Serbia and Kosovo, would have been involved in

22 orchestrating this scheme to remove these bodies.

23 Your Honours, before I move on from the killing sites, I'd like

24 to say a few more words about the mass graves.

25 These mass graves were found in Serbia starting in 2001, after a

Page 211

1 newspaper report was published that during the war in 1999 one of the

2 trucks that were conveying the bodies from Kosovo to Serbia proper had

3 been in an accident and had ran off the road into the Danube River. This

4 was published in early 2001 and led to an investigation in which the mass

5 graves were found. This investigation involved the participation of many

6 international organisations, including this Tribunal.

7 Overall, the remains of approximately 800 Kosovo Albanians were

8 identified through DNA analysis from the human remains in the mass

9 graves, three mass graves, unearthed in Serbia in 2001. About one-half

10 of them are not among the victims listed in the schedules to the

11 indictment, but they are Kosovo Albanians that were reported killed or

12 disappeared in Kosovo from places and at times where, according to the

13 evidence to be tendered, there were ongoing expulsions of

14 Kosovo Albanians.

15 Evidence from several witnesses will show that this accused

16 played a major role in orchestrating and organising the concealment of

17 the bodies of the Kosovo Albanian victims in Serbia. Among these

18 witnesses is a senior police officer who will testify that the accused

19 personally ordered him to arrange trans-shipment of bodies of

20 Kosovo Albanians that were in a refrigerator truck that was found

21 abandoned in the Danube River. As I indicated, apparently the driver had

22 been in an accident and had driven away -- driven off the road into the

23 river. These bodies, the evidence will show, were taken to the SAJ

24 training ground in Batajnica.

25 Another witness, an SAJ officer who worked at the ground, will

Page 212

1 testify that he was ordered by the accused to receive and bury truckloads

2 of corpses transported to the site, and that over a period of 20 days,

3 from early April 1999, there were about six occasions when, on orders of

4 the accused, he received truckloads of bodies to be buried at Batajnica.

5 One -- another former police officer, senior police officer, will

6 testify as to investigations into these mass graves, what the accused

7 said and significantly did not say when he was confronted with the

8 information of his role in these clandestine burials, and also of his

9 flight and disappearance when he was informed that he would be officially

10 interrogated in respect to these mass graves.

11 Indeed, that officer will testify that his investigations

12 revealed that sometime in the early part of the conflict there was a

13 meeting in Belgrade involving Messrs. Milosevic, the

14 MUP Minister Stojiljkovic, the Head of the State Security Department

15 Markovic, and this accused, where the issue as to what is called

16 "cleaning" or "clearing the battlefield" was discussed. And this accused

17 suggested the removal of the bodies.

18 If I may pause just to review, I think I might have misspoken.

19 The Minister Stojiljkovic ordered the accused to make

20 arrangements for the clearing of the battlefield, which is the disposal

21 of these bodies, and the investigations of this officer also revealed

22 that at a collegium of the Minister of the Interior, this accused

23 deputied and instructed one Dragan Ilic, who is also named as a

24 co-conspirator, or member of the JCE, Dragan Ilic, to make provisions for

25 the criminal police from Belgrade to assist in the disposal or the

Page 213

1 concealment of the bodies of civilians that were murdered in Kosovo.

2 So you will hear from these witnesses that the persons involved

3 at the high level in clearing the bodies used the apparently innocuous

4 term or expression for their doing, "clearing the battlefield" or

5 "cleaning the battlefield"; and this expression in certain context may

6 refer to legitimate activity when there are battles, that is, clearing

7 the ground after a battle of unexploded ordinance, dead animals, dead

8 persons, and the like. But when it was used in this context,

9 Your Honours, they were not referring to the casualties of war or

10 anti-terrorist action that may be urged later on. They were referring to

11 the cover-up of mass murder.

12 Yet the architects of this cover-up failed miserably. The

13 eye-witness to these killings will testify that the people were executed

14 en masse. In addition, you will hear the testimony of Dr. Jose Barybar,

15 a forensic anthropologist, that the vast majority of the victims whose

16 remains were recovered from the mass graves in a state susceptible to

17 forensic examination had been killed by gun-shot wounds inflicted in

18 circumstances where they were not or unlikely to have been involved in

19 combat.

20 The evidence from the mass graves, it is the Prosecution's

21 submission, proves that the murders were the result of a widespread and

22 systematic campaign. The Office of Missing Persons and Forensics, the

23 OMPF, of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo gathered data on persons

24 reported missing in Kosovo during the indictment period. This will be

25 submitted in evidence. The reports include the locality and the

Page 214

1 municipality of the disappearance or death of each person and the date of

2 the disappearance.

3 The distribution, according to the locality of death or

4 disappearance of the victims that were identified from the remains of the

5 mass grave, is depicted in the map now before you of Kosovo, the larger

6 green circles indicating where there were more concentrations or a higher

7 number of the disappearances were reported. You will see to the

8 left-hand bottom of the map there is a -- the Meja area.

9 I should point out that in the middle of the map, to the south,

10 you will see Suva Reka. Due to my oversight, the marking, the green

11 marking for Suva Reka is not there, but there ought to be a green dot for

12 Suva Reka because, as you will recall, there were about 30 bodies from

13 the Suva Reka massacre that were recovered in Serbia.

14 But you will see the spread as to where these people came from.

15 All over Kosovo. Not from one place but all over Kosovo. You will also

16 note when you receive the evidence and review it that the spread was over

17 time. Meja was toward the latter part of April, that's the Meja

18 massacre. Suva Reka was the 25th of March, and it spreads right

19 throughout that period. And you will ask yourself, or it is submitted

20 that you're entitled to ask yourself as to how could this have been

21 coordinated and achieved if it was not a part of a systematic organised

22 campaign.

23 We say, Your Honours, that the collection and disposal of the

24 remains of so many victims killed at disparate places and at different

25 times during the indictment period demonstrates that the accused

Page 215

1 participated in planning and organising not only the concealment of the

2 bodies and the cover-up of the murders, but it also supports the short

3 inference that this accused was a leading figure in coordinating a

4 widespread and systematic campaign of violence against the Kosovo

5 Albanians. You may, Your Honours, conclude, after hearing the evidence

6 led, that as police chief for all of Serbia, his role was indispensable

7 in facilitating the crimes, as without him it is hard to conceive how

8 this scheme involving police officers from different areas in Kosovo and

9 in Serbia as well could have even been attempted.

10 The Prosecution will make the appropriate submissions as to what

11 could be made of what we might term the "bodies" evidence in due course.

12 Before moving on to discuss the deportation sites, I direct your

13 attention, Your Honours, with your leave, to another matter worth

14 mentioning in regard to the killings.

15 Based on rough mathematical calculations, the number of named,

16 identified victims from the specific killings that are listed in a

17 schedule to the indictment total 838 individuals, mostly men. This is

18 consistent, of course, with the evidence that oftentimes the men were

19 taken away from the convoys and murdered. Of that total, however, 53

20 were children under the age of 16 years; 41 were women; 92 were elderly

21 men, over the age of 65 years. We suggest that these are not what you

22 might expect to see from a legitimate campaign against armed terrorists.

23 In regard to the deportations, as I indicated earlier, where

24 there were these murders, there were refugees; there were deportations.

25 But if I may touch briefly on four of the deportation municipalities or

Page 216

1 four of the deportation sites.

2 Before you, Your Honours, is a map showing many of the areas from

3 where the -- from where people were deported. I should point out that

4 persons were deported, obviously, from all parts of Kosovo, but these are

5 some of the major areas.

6 The evidence will show a pattern of conduct by forces of the FRY

7 and Serbia which supports the inference that this was a widespread and

8 systematic attack directed against the civilian Kosovo Albanian

9 population; that it was well-planned and coordinated from above, and that

10 its objective, at least one of its primary objectives, was to modify the

11 ethnic balance in Kosovo in order to maintain Serb control.

12 Generally speaking, in the eastern part of Kosovo, as you will

13 see from the upcoming map, the forces of the FRY and Serbia drove the

14 people, the Kosovo Albanians, to the south, towards Macedonia. In the

15 western side of the province, the people, the refugees, tended to be

16 pushed towards Albania, and you will see on the map here some border

17 crossings that no doubt in the course of the evidence you will become

18 familiar with, Cafa Morines, Cafa Prusit, Djeneral Jankovic, being some

19 of the more significant ones. There were five primary border crossing

20 points that no doubt you will become family with.

21 As I indicated earlier, border crossings were under the control

22 of the border police from the Public Security Department led by the

23 accused, and these police, they were involved in mistreating the

24 Kosovo Albanian refugees and taking away their identification documents.

25 If I may turn to Pec. In the town of Pec, in Pec municipality,

Page 217

1 forces of the FRY and Serbia went from house to house, forcing the

2 Kosovo Albanians to leave their homes. In the course of this process,

3 persons were killed and many houses were set on fire. Serb soldiers and

4 police directed the civilians to the town centre where those without

5 their own vehicles were forced to get on buses and trucks. They were

6 then driven to Prizren and towards the border with Albania. The

7 Kosovo Albanians were then forced off the buses and trucks and directed

8 to walk the last 15 kilometres to Albania. At the border, before leaving

9 Kosovo, they were ordered to turn over their identity papers to the

10 forces of the FRY and Serbia.

11 If we could look at Prizren municipality for the deportation

12 routes from Prizren. You can also see the people from Meja and Korenica,

13 many of them went through Prizren and from there to Albania.

14 Beginning 25 March, forces of the FRY and Serbia began attacking

15 villages in this municipality, forcing Kosovo Albanians from their homes

16 and sending them to the Albania border.

17 In the town of Prizren, beginning on the 20th of March, forces of

18 the FRY and Serbia went from house to house ordering the Albanians to

19 leave. They formed convoys and headed towards the border where many of

20 them were assaulted and some of them were forced to make the last

21 15-kilometre part of the journey to the border on foot. Some were beaten

22 and killed in that journey. And, again, as is a pattern, at the border,

23 their identity documents were taken away.

24 The same thing was repeated in Pristina. The map before

25 Your Honours show the deportation sites from Pristina. Many of these

Page 218

1 people were put on trains, as we saw in the film, and taken to the

2 various border crossings. The pattern in Pristina was the same. I don't

3 think I need to go through it. The border crossings or the -- you'll see

4 from the map that the persons who joined these convoys out of Pristina

5 came from the surrounding districts, the areas surrounding Pristina, and,

6 as usual, many of them were assaulted on their way and beaten, robbed,

7 and killed, travel document taken away.

8 Urosevac. Urosevac is the capital town of the Urosevac

9 municipality. It's on your screen before you. Again, the people who had

10 been forced out of their homes, the villagers from the surrounding

11 villages or the villages surrounding the towns, would have been forced

12 from their homes, as you can see from the convoy routes. They were

13 marched off or forced to form convoys towards the town Urosevac, and from

14 there towards the border to Macedonia, the border crossing to Macedonia.

15 That point is Djeneral Jankovic border crossing.

16 So I will not -- I don't think it is necessary to go into the

17 details. The evidence will make it clear how these people were forced

18 from their homes and directed, almost like cattle, towards these

19 corridors to leave the country. As I indicated earlier, many times when

20 the villages and the towns were surrounded, a path was always left open

21 for people to flee, for people to leave, and in many cases the people

22 before taken away on trains.

23 The indictment, Your Honours, if I may move on, also charges the

24 accused with persecutions and this includes the destruction of cultural

25 sites and religious buildings. This destruction and the widespread

Page 219

1 destruction, I should call it, of Kosovo Albanian cultural structures and

2 religious buildings is evidence, we say, Your Honours, of persecution on

3 racial, political, and religious grounds. The evidence will show that

4 many times during the deportations and the killings, the assailants also

5 destroyed the mosques and other cultural sites of the Kosovo Albanians,

6 intending that these people not return.

7 You'll see scrolling through in front of you photographs of many

8 of these destroyed structures. Much of this will be led in evidence and

9 a number of witnesses will testify as to how these cultural sites were

10 damaged or destroyed, including an expert on the subject,

11 Andreas Riedlmayer.

12 The evidence of all of these witnesses will say that not only

13 were the crimes committed in a manner intended to discriminate against

14 these people on racial and religious grounds, but there was an intention

15 that the people who had been driven out were not expected or intended to

16 return. And the eye-witness and expert evidence will also show that the

17 damage was not done by NATO bombing, as might be asserted. It was not

18 from the air but rather from the ground, by forces of the FRY and Serbia.

19 The evidence, we submit, in total will lead you to the

20 irrefutable conclusion that these religious and cultural sites were

21 specifically targeted by the forces of the FRY and Serbia who were

22 engaged in a campaign of persecution, as defined in the jurisprudence of

23 this Tribunal.

24 The evidence will further show, if I may move on to the

25 additional liability of this accused under Article 7(3) of the Statute of

Page 220

1 this Tribunal, the evidence will show that none of the crimes charged

2 here were properly investigated during the time when the accused occupied

3 his position as chief of the police, nor were the perpetrators punished.

4 This general impunity for serious violations of humanitarian law

5 against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo did not exist because there were

6 problems in the courts that were functioning during or after the

7 conflict. On the contrary, the civilian courts worked normally during

8 the conflict and thereafter.

9 Nevertheless, impunity prevailed for the crimes we are dealing

10 with in this trial, the serious crimes committed against Kosovo Albanians

11 by the Serbian police. The murders charged in the indictment were

12 massacres on a massive scale and must have been notorious when they were

13 committed; yet at that time, no necessary appropriate actions were taken

14 to punish the offenders.

15 We expect to prove during this trial that the widespread

16 persecution, deportation, murder, mistreatment, rape, and destruction of

17 property committed against the Kosovo Albanians was not a matter of

18 serious concern for the police authorities. There was no meaningful,

19 substantive effort to fully investigate such matters or to see the MUP

20 perpetrators of such crimes punished. The occasional rare investigation,

21 usually when something received some international attention, that did

22 take place were superficial, and the perpetrators remained unknown,

23 unlocated, uncharged, and unpunished, at least during the time when this

24 accused occupied the position up to 2001. The evidence will lead -- the

25 evidence we will lead on the investigations into the massacres at Izbica

Page 221

1 and Podujevo will show that these were just token efforts.

2 Impunity for the crimes concerned in this indictment went hand in

3 hand with attempts to conceal these crimes. At different crime sites

4 described before, the perpetrators attempted to dispose of the corpus

5 delicti, the human remains and bodies of the murdered victims, by

6 dynamiting or blowing up houses in which the massacres had taken place,

7 setting them on fire, and otherwise hiding corpses. This sort of

8 cover-up not only occurred in respect to the sites we described before,

9 but also in respect to other sites like Kacanik, for example.

10 Finally, the evidence will show that in many cases, crimes

11 committed against Kosovo Albanians were not only tolerated but were

12 ordered to be committed by superior officers of the direct perpetrators.

13 In the course of this trial, you will hear live testimony from witnesses,

14 policemen, who experienced this themselves.

15 We say, Your Honours, respectfully, that this evidence will prove

16 responsibility of the accused under Article 7(3) of the Statute. We say

17 that the accused had effective control over the police perpetrators,

18 meaning the material ability to prevent or punish the commission of the

19 offences. He had the material ability to enforce discipline among the

20 policemen he deployed to Kosovo and to effect the prosecution and

21 punishment of perpetrators by virtue of his police -- by virtue of his

22 position as chief of the police. By virtue of that position, his de jure

23 and de facto powers, it was within his power and authority to take

24 measures that would have prevented the crimes or punished the

25 perpetrators.

Page 222

1 We will lead documentary evidence, Your Honours, of the accused

2 exercising his authority over the forces in Kosovo as chief of the

3 police. I indicated earlier an example of one such order issued by the

4 accused in respect to his forces in Kosovo, and this one is one of the

5 21st of March, where he deploys various units.

6 Firstly, he -- this is an order to all the SUP chiefs, including

7 the SUP chiefs in Kosovo, signed by the accused and dated the 21st of

8 March - several of these, as I indicated, will be tendered into

9 evidence - where he deploys units in Kosovo and orders what is to be done

10 to accommodate and to enable these units to operate in Kosovo, and these

11 orders issued by the accused in respect to his units in Kosovo were in

12 mandatory terms. These were orders that he was issuing. So he had

13 effective control over these units.

14 The evidence, Your Honours, will also show that the accused knew,

15 or had reason to know, that serious violations of international

16 humanitarian law, just described, were committed by MUP forces or forces

17 subordinated to them or incorporated into them and operating in Kosovo.

18 He had specific information in his possession which put him on actual

19 notice of the Podujevo massacre, for example, including a report that was

20 addressed to him, and yet his response was token and inadequate. He also

21 knew of the criminal propensity of certain elements within the MUP.

22 Despite his superior position and his material ability to take necessary

23 measures and his knowledge, he failed to prevent and punish these gross

24 crimes. And that is why we say he is responsible under Article 7(3).

25 If I may make some general remarks before I close, Your Honours.

Page 223

1 The case against the accused will be complex. It will be broad in scope,

2 reflecting the nature of the charges; and yet it will be detailed, as

3 criminal cases must be, with specific features of the evidence are

4 required to be explored in depth.

5 As the accused was a member of a joint criminal enterprise, as we

6 allege, it is necessary to tender much of the evidence previously

7 presented in the trial of his co-indictees, or his former co-indictees,

8 in order to show the complete picture. As was discussed recently, we

9 have applied that some of the evidence that was introduced in previous --

10 in the previous trial be received in writing under the rules of this

11 Tribunal. However, we will bring some witnesses here, or we propose to

12 bring some witnesses here, and for many of them, this will be the third

13 time they are coming to The Hague to testify at this Tribunal; and in

14 many cases we ask the Court to understand that it involves some

15 considerable degree of stress for some people to travel here to recount

16 much of these harrowing experiences, and to some degree witness -- what

17 we term "witness fatigue" may set in. We are grateful for the patience

18 of these witnesses and sacrifice that many of them make in the interests

19 of justice.

20 The Prosecution will also tender a significant amount of

21 documents. I won't comment on these. Many of them will speak for

22 themselves.

23 Among the witnesses we intend to call are what we refer to as

24 "insiders." These witnesses are former policemen or soldiers. They are

25 former members of the forces of the FRY and Serbia who will testify about

Page 224

1 some of the crimes committed and also about the organisation and

2 structure of the MUP and the role of the accused. Some of them, Your

3 Honours, are fully cooperative and speak from a desire to clear their

4 conscience and to demonstrate that it is not the Serbian nation, it is

5 not the spirit of the Serbian people that caused these crimes but rather

6 individuals, individuals who are responsible for these gross crimes

7 against humanity, persons in leadership positions that incited and

8 orchestrated them.

9 Other insiders are not so cooperative, as one can imagine, and we

10 will seek the assistance of this Trial Chamber in order to ensure their

11 attendance.

12 I have already introduced Ms. Kravetz, to my right. Earlier

13 today Ms. Gopalan was here, and yesterday Mr. Neuner was here. They will

14 be actively involved Your Honours will be happy to know, in the

15 presentation of these case, and therefore you will not be seeing me much

16 of the time. I'm sure that will come as some relief to Your Honours.

17 There are other lawyers on the team and they may also take part

18 in some of the work here in court, and you may become familiar with them

19 over time. They are Ms. Silvia D'Ascoli, Ms. Tove Nilson, and

20 Mr. Eliott Behar. I wish to thank all of them for their work in the

21 preparation of the case and later its presentation. I also wish to thank

22 my colleague Mr. Tom Hannis, who was integral in the preparation of this

23 case and also this opening address.

24 Your Honours, we are honoured to appear before this Chamber and

25 will endeavour to present the Prosecution's case in the highest

Page 225

1 traditions of fairness and professionalism.

2 So, Your Honours, I come back to the narrative. So why, why did

3 these crimes happen? The short and simple answer is that the

4 participants in the JCE were fed up with the Kosovo problem, and they

5 were determined not to yield Kosovo in spite of the will of the majority

6 Kosovo Albanians.

7 For years they had tried various measures but without success.

8 The Serbs were losing the demographic game in Kosovo, and it would only

9 get worse. Efforts to deal with the problem through legislation and

10 increasingly discriminatory measures did not work. Use of force by the

11 police and then the military did not work. It made the situation worse.

12 More and more Kosovo Albanians abandoned the notion of non-violent civil

13 resistance and turned to the KLA and a programme of violent resistance.

14 By the time the conflict started, the decision had been made --

15 the conflict in March 1999, the decision had been made and the forces put

16 into place to finally make a significant change in the ethnic balance in

17 Kosovo.

18 So the victims of the crimes enumerated in the indictment were

19 not collateral damage from a conflict between the KLA and the FRY, nor

20 from the NATO bombings. This was not a series of coincidences, nor was

21 it simply the sad and unavoidable consequence of a legitimate

22 anti-terrorist campaign by the forces of the FRY and Serbia.

23 This was a plan, directed from above, coordinated by the accused

24 and other members of the JCE, using the forces under their command and

25 control to bring the objective of the JCE into reality.

Page 226

1 All the evidence considered together can only lead to the

2 inference and the solid conclusion that these crimes were part of a

3 common plan.

4 As you listen to the evidence unfold, Your Honours, over the next

5 few months, you will undoubtedly be struck by some key factors which I

6 ask you to bear in mind from the outset, and these include the nature of

7 the armed conflict beginning on the 24th of March, that is, a

8 coordinated, widespread, systematic nature of the attacks all over

9 Kosovo, and the pattern, the same pattern happened at practically the

10 same places in different municipalities over Kosovo. The number of

11 children, women and elderly victims who were obviously not KLA fighters

12 or terrorists. The efforts to conceal the crimes, particularly taking

13 the great logistical pains and using precious resources to transport the

14 bodies hundreds of kilometres away to mass graves in Serbia proper. The

15 attacks also predictably included verbal abuse on ethnic grounds and the

16 confiscation and destruction of identity documents. You will see that as

17 a common theme throughout the evidence.

18 At the conclusion of our case, the Prosecution submits that the

19 body of evidence tendered will leave the Trial Chamber with no reasonable

20 doubt that the accused is guilty as charged on each count of the

21 indictment. Your Honours, my colleagues and I look forward to presenting

22 our case to you, and I thank you very much for your kindness and

23 permission in allowing me to speak today, may it please you.

24 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you very much, Mr. Stamp.

25 Mr. Djordjevic, as foreshadowed yesterday, this is an occasion

Page 228

1 [Statement by the Accused]

2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you very much.

3 Your Honours, thank you for having allowed me to address you

4 after the opening statement made by the Prosecution.

5 The indictment charges me that as a member of the joint criminal

6 enterprise I committed the gravest crimes against the civilian Albania

7 population. The objective of this joint criminal enterprise was

8 allegedly the modification of the ethnic balance in Kosovo and Metohija

9 in order to ensure continued Serbian control over the province.

10 I must admit that I find the indictment to be unclear in the part

11 that sets out the goal of the joint criminal enterprise.

12 First of all, the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija is

13 an integral part of the Republic of Serbia, which together with the

14 Republic of Montenegro made up the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

15 Serbia had sovereign power --

16 JUDGE PARKER: I'm afraid I must ask you to speak more slowly.

17 You are getting increasingly ahead of the people trying to translate and

18 interpret. If you wouldn't mind just speaking more slowly, it will

19 enable them to keep up.

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, thank you. Thank you.

21 Serbia had sovereign authority over its entire territory, so

22 Serbia could not take any action in order to ensure allegedly continued

23 control. No state authority is limited in time and all countries in the

24 world exercise sovereign authority over their territory in an unlimited

25 span of time. On the other hand, a modification of the alleged ethnic

Page 229

1 balance in Kosovo and the Prosecution case that the Serbs in Kosovo and

2 Metohija were a minority population and that many of them considered

3 Kosovo an integral part of Serbia, which is what the Prosecutor says in

4 his pre-trial brief, obviously indicates the political position of the

5 OTP that Kosovo and Metohija is not an integral part of Serbia or,

6 rather, that Serbia did not have sovereignty over Kosovo and Metohija.

7 It seems to me that this kind of indictment shows what its

8 political objective is, and this proceeding should be a legal vehicle for

9 the implementation of that goal.

10 I was born in Koznica, the municipality of Vladicin Han, in 1948,

11 where I lived with my parents and younger brother. After completing

12 secondary school, I graduated from the law school of the University of

13 Nis in 1971; and I got a job in the Ministry of Interior, MUP, in the

14 Republic of Serbia, in the SUP of Zajecar.

15 While completing my internship, I became an inspector for

16 white-collar crimes, and I was in that position for over a year. Towards

17 the end of 1975, I became a senior police inspector. I became Chief of

18 the Division for Police Affairs in the Police Administration of the

19 Republican SUP in Belgrade in February 1982. I spent around eight years

20 doing that job and then for a year and a half I was Chief of the

21 Inspectorate for Internal Affairs, monitoring legality in the work of the

22 Republican SUP.

23 From time to time in 1981, for several years I carried out duties

24 of highest responsibility in the area of the Autonomous Province of

25 Kosovo and Metohija, starting with battalion commander, all the way up to

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1 the commander of the joint force or the federal SUP, Federal Secretary

2 for Internal Affairs, and the head of the staff of the MUP for the

3 Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija.

4 Towards the end of 1991, I was appointed Chief of the

5 Administration of the Police, and I held that position until 1997, when,

6 after the murder of General Radovan Stojicic, Minister Stojiljkovic first

7 appointed me Acting Chief of Public Security and a few months after that,

8 I received a decision on my appointment as Chief of the RJB. Up until

9 then and after that in public and state security, there was no longer

10 acting heads. The appointments were for the position of chief

11 immediately.

12 As chief of the public security department of the MUP of the

13 Republic of Serbia, it was my duty, in keeping with the policy and

14 decisions of the state organs and especially of the Minister of the

15 Interior, Vlajko Stojiljkovic, to carry out measures within the scope of

16 the powers vested in me and pursue the state policy that had been set.

17 I cannot accept that the President of the FRY, the President of

18 the Republic of Serbia, the Deputy Prime Minister of the FRY, the

19 Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Serbia, the Chief of the

20 General Staff of the Army of Yugoslavia, the Commander of the Third Army

21 of the VJ, and the Commander of the Pristina Corps of the VJ, and the

22 Head of the SUP Staff of the Republic of Serbia in Kosovo and Metohija

23 and I, as Chief of the RJB of the MUP of the Republic of Serbia, are all

24 engaged in a joint criminal enterprise as we carried out the set policy

25 of all the political and state organs of the country aimed at curbing

Page 231

1 terrorism.

2 At the highest state level what was approved and planned was an

3 anti-terrorist activity during 1998, as well as during the defence of the

4 country, and it was not aimed against the Albania civilian population in

5 Kosovo and Metohija or against any other civilian population. The

6 objective was to free roads, neutralise actions of the terrorists, find

7 and set free citizens who had been kidnapped, to establish public law and

8 order, and ensure the personal and property-related safety of all

9 citizens of Kosovo and Metohija.

10 These activities were aimed against the terrorists who wished

11 through violent means to have Kosovo and Metohija secede from the

12 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and they wanted to achieve that by any

13 means. During the war they openly stood on the side of the aggressor and

14 represented the aggressor's land force or ground force that was supposed

15 to facilitate and make possible through their activities a land

16 aggression against Serbia.

17 The methods of the activities of the terrorists were reflected in

18 attacks against the army and the police that carried out their duties as

19 established by the constitution and law. Then also by kidnapping and

20 killing Albanians who were loyal to the state, as well as through

21 terrorising the non-Albania population, blocking and barricading roads.

22 In less than a year, for no reason whatsoever, policemen,

23 soldiers, innocent citizens, were killed and kidnapped in order to create

24 an atmosphere of a reign of terror, lack of tolerance, and to give rise

25 to interethnic conflicts, all with the aim of establishing a Republic of

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1 Kosovo and attaining the cessation of the Autonomous Province of Kosovo

2 and Metohija from the Republic of Serbia.

3 Armed from Albania and by the powerful forces, through different

4 forms of activity, Albanian extremists and terrorists resorted to all

5 possible means, including the civilian population, in order to attain

6 their goals, especially creating a semblance of a humanitarian

7 catastrophe while accusing the state forces for excessive use of force

8 and non-observance of human rights.

9 There was no plan or order for acting against the civilian

10 Albanian population in any form. The activity of the state forces did

11 not have as its objective the persecution of the non-Albania -- of the

12 Albanian civilian population, creating an atmosphere of fear and

13 insecurity, destroying property, cultural and religious landmarks.

14 Within the scope of our possibilities we took all possible

15 measures in order to resolve crimes, find their perpetrators,

16 irrespective of national, ethnic, racial, and religious affiliation.

17 Like in any war, there were crimes, but they had not been planned,

18 instigated or approved. And as for the crimes and criminals who were

19 found, action was taken in accordance with the procedures set by law in

20 keeping with the possibilities and circumstances that we faced at the

21 time.

22 One should not lose sight of the fact that many crimes were not

23 reported, which made the work of the police even more difficult in terms

24 of uncovering crimes and perpetrators. And then the withdrawal of the

25 military and police forces from the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and

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1 Metohija in June 1999, after the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement,

2 rendered impossible the further work of our organs in that territory.

3 Population movements took place for several reasons, namely, fear

4 from bombing, fear from conflicts with terrorists, fear from combat

5 activities. And also the terrorists abused civilian population in order

6 to create an apparent humanitarian catastrophe. There was no forced

7 movement of the population, and the population that fled was rendered all

8 possible aid and assistance within the scope of the possibilities then

9 existing.

10 The position that I held then did not permit me to make state

11 level and political decisions that were within the powers of various

12 organs in accordance with the constitution and law, and it was the

13 Minister of the Interior who prescribed the procedure in terms of

14 implementing decisions that belonged to the purview of the MUP of the

15 Republic of Serbia and the RJB within it.

16 From 1981 onwards, after the demonstrations that were held in

17 Pristina when the demand Kosovo should be a republic was voiced with a

18 view to the violent secession of the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and

19 Metohija from the Republic of Serbia, the Federal Ministry of the

20 Interior of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia established a

21 staff which continued to exist and function all the way up to the end of

22 June 1999.

23 When the top state organs adopted in 1998 a plan for combating

24 terrorism in Kosovo and Metohija, the Minister of the Interior passed a

25 decision setting the mandate, composition, and responsibility of the

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1 staff of the MUP for combatting terrorism in the territory of Kosovo and

2 Metohija. The minister decided that in addition to the appointed leader

3 and members of the staff, that also included members of the RJB and the

4 RDB, the broader composition should have attached to it the chiefs of the

5 secretariats of the interior centres and divisions of the RDB in the

6 territory in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija. The task of

7 the staff was to plan, organise, and lead the work and engagement of

8 organisational units of the ministry as well as sent and attached units

9 in controlling and combatting terrorism in the territory of Kosovo and

10 Metohija.

11 In addition to that, the task of the staff was to plan, organise,

12 channel, and bring together the work of the organisational units of the

13 ministry in Kosovo and Metohija in carrying out more complex

14 security-related tasks.

15 For his own work, the work of the staff, and the state of

16 security within the purview of the staff itself, the head of the staff

17 is -- directly reports to the minister, and he reports to the minister

18 about security incidents, measures taken, and the results of these

19 measures.

20 When the minister made his decision of the 16th of June, 1998, he

21 decided that all previous decisions on the establishment of the staff of

22 the MUP and the decisions on appointing the composition of the staff of

23 the MUP that I made as Chief of the RJB shall become null and void. The

24 minister had the authority to make such a decision on the basis of the

25 Law on the Interior and other bylaws. And that was the only solution

Page 235

1 possible, in view of the fact that the staff brought together the work of

2 both departments of the MUP. So it was only the minister who could have

3 made such a decision and regulate in this way the work and responsibility

4 of the organ that was established at the level of all of the MUP.

5 I never reported to any state organ, or did I brief it on the

6 situation, plans, and tasks related to the security situation in the

7 territory of Kosovo and Metohija, and no one reported to me, as the Chief

8 of the RJB, on the planning, organisation and implementation of

9 anti-terrorist actions in Kosovo and Metohija at the time relevant to the

10 indictment.

11 In accordance with the minister's order, I stayed in the

12 Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija from July 1998 until the end

13 of September 1998. In that period a plan was carried out for combatting

14 terrorism in Kosovo and Metohija which had been adopted by the top state

15 leadership on the basis of a plan that had been adopted by the

16 Army of Yugoslavia, and the MUP of the Republic of Serbia took part in

17 that, too.

18 I assumed that due to the complexity and seriousness of the

19 security-related and political situation in the territory of Kosovo and

20 Metohija, the minister decided that I should be present while the plan

21 for combatting terrorism was being carried out in 1998. The staff was in

22 charge of the MUP forces and coordination and activity with the

23 Army of Yugoslavia was implemented in accordance with the adopted plan of

24 the VJ, while coordinating activities with the commander of the Pristina

25 Corps.

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1 Due to the gravity of the political situation, the situation in

2 Kosovo and Metohija was uppermost political issue in the country and that

3 is why the top political officials of the FRY and the Republic of Serbia

4 came to the area of Kosovo and Metohija, and they dealt with the

5 functioning of the state organs there.

6 By monitoring the situation in the field every day and carrying

7 out the adopted plan for combatting terrorism, what was necessary was the

8 exchange of information and communication between and among all state

9 structures so that the intimidated, terrified population would see that

10 the state did care and was resolute in terms of establishing normal

11 communication and movement of citizens throughout the territory of Kosovo

12 and Metohija, the personal and property-related security of citizens, and

13 to establish the normal functioning of the state while curbing the

14 activities of the terrorist forces and terrorism as such.

15 After the plan for combatting terrorism was being carried out,

16 there was a normalisation of work and life in Kosovo and Metohija.

17 Inter-ethnic confidence was re-established and all persons returned to

18 their homes and places of residence.

19 The Geremek-Jovanovic Agreement was signed after intense

20 political negotiations, and then on the 25th of October, pursuant to an

21 authorisation given to me by the Minister of the Interior, I signed

22 agreements with John Byrnes and Klaus Naumann specifying the number of

23 observation points, reducing the strength of the police force, and

24 limiting the use of weapons of larger calibre.

25 Once the police forces withdrew in accordance with the agreement,

Page 237

1 the terrorist forces exploited the pull-out and retook their previous

2 positions, continuing their terrorist activity.

3 After this period, I would only go to Kosovo and Metohija in the

4 escort of the minister or members of the Republic of Serbia government,

5 and this was only for a few times up until the end of June 1999.

6 In early 1999, it was assessed that there was a possibility that

7 there would be an aggression against the territory of Serbia, first

8 through air-strikes, followed by a ground invasion of the NATO forces.

9 In the Serbian MUP, preparations were made for the defence of the country

10 and war plans were updated.

11 I ran the Public Security Department in the same manner,

12 regardless of where the organisational units were located, throughout the

13 territory of the Republic of Serbia, within the framework of the powers

14 that were vested in me by the minister. I have to stress that in his

15 decision of the 16th of June, 1998, the minister, within the mandate and

16 the composition of the MUP Staff for combatting terrorism in the

17 territory of Kosovo and Metohija, brought together both departments of

18 the MUP and made all decisions relating to the tasks, operation, flow of

19 information, and responsibilities of the staff.

20 In the course of the combat operations, regular security tasks

21 that the Public Security Department carried out were carried out in

22 accordance with the laws and regulations throughout the territory of the

23 Republic of Serbia, and as for me I ran the department from Belgrade,

24 taking care of its work throughout the territory of the republic.

25 It was only the minister that was in charge of the anti-terrorist

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1 activities in the territory of the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and

2 Metohija before and during the war. He decided within the MUP who and

3 how would carry out tasks in Kosovo and Metohija in accordance with the

4 state policy as it was set.

5 I never heard either the minister or any top people issue any

6 tasks that would call for crimes against the Albania civilian population,

7 that would incite MUP personnel to commit crimes or to the effect that

8 their crimes would be tolerated.

9 Regardless of the difficult situation that the country found

10 itself in, what was insisted on was the legality in the work and

11 operation of the MUP and respect of human rights. And as for those

12 members of the MUP who violated the rules and regulations, disciplinary

13 and criminal proceedings were instituted against them, with a special

14 emphasis placed on the treatment of civilians and provision of

15 humanitarian aid.

16 Regular security duties were carried out in the same manner as we

17 had done them before the war but in conditions that were substantially

18 more difficult. We complied with the law and the regulations that were

19 passed during the state of war.

20 In light of the severe destruction caused by air-strikes, I had

21 to take measures to eliminate the consequences, to ensure the swift and

22 efficient operation of the MUP organs, and the coordination of the work

23 with other relevant organs, primarily in an effort to attend the scenes

24 of air-strikes as soon as possible; to have the first responders there as

25 soon as possible, primarily the fire-fighting teams, and then other

Page 239

1 services who were there to assist the victims; and to carry out on-site

2 investigation and to document the consequences of the air-strikes,

3 determining the number and identity of the casualties, both killed --

4 those who were killed and who were wounded, recording the destroyed

5 facilities, and so on.

6 Difficulties experienced in communications made it even more

7 difficult to carry out these tasks and required swift reactions

8 throughout the territory of the republic. Throughout this time of the

9 war, the headquarters of the MUP of the Republic of Serbia and of the RJB

10 was located in Belgrade, but the locations where our job was actually

11 done changed all the time because of the air-strikes.

12 Regular security work in all organisational units went on in a

13 unified way, and reports about security incidents that I received every

14 day did not contain any information or data about anti-terrorist

15 activities.

16 I did not take part in the drafting of the plans for combatting

17 terrorism. I was not aware. I did not receive any information about

18 where those activities would take place, and I did not take part in their

19 implementation in the time relevant for the indictment.

20 The call-up, the training of the regular and reserve force,

21 dispatching units to Kosovo and Metohija, their billeting and board,

22 these are regular tasks that the appropriate administration in the RJB is

23 charged with, or sections and divisions within various SUPs. But those

24 activities don't have anything to do with the planning, control, or

25 actual implementation of anti-terrorist activities. Disciplinary

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1 proceedings were carried out in accordance with the regular procedure,

2 and this was something that the Public Security Department did. It was

3 one of its regular tasks.

4 No paramilitary units were ever drafted into the reserve force of

5 the MUP of Republic of Serbia. It was only individuals, in accordance

6 with the relevant laws. The reception was carried out by the police

7 administration in accordance with the military offices and local SUPs.

8 I first learned about the truck with the bodies from the chief of

9 the SUP in Bor, not knowing how the truck got to be in the Danube, where

10 it had come from, or who had organised the transport. After receiving

11 this information, I thought that the regular police crime investigation

12 had to be carried out, in accordance with the law, and this is what I

13 insisted on in my conversation with the chief of the SUP in Bor.

14 However, having received additional information, and in light of

15 the fact that the local SUP could not do this in accordance with the

16 procedure, I informed the minister about all that and he took all the

17 decisions that followed, and I relayed them to the chief of the SUP in

18 Bor and to other persons who took part in the implementation of the

19 orders from the minister. I could not effect the decisions that were

20 made, and bearing the time when all this was going on, the state of war,

21 the aggression, I could not leave my post, and I could not refuse to

22 implement the orders that I received.

23 After the change in the government in Serbia, I received reliable

24 information from my close associates that my life was in danger. At the

25 same time, I learned that the people who were now in government, after

Page 241

1 retirement, wanted to place me under arrest for reasons that were unknown

2 to me; and they would quote the wrong-doings that I purportedly had done

3 in the Milicionar Sports Association as a pretext.

4 Bearing all this in mind, the facts that I just quoted, I left

5 Serbia in 2001. The way I chose, I can see now, was the wrong one

6 because I would have been able in talks with the state organs, with

7 representatives and investigators of this Tribunal, to clear up my role

8 and my actions and avoid the indictment against me. The indictment was

9 issued in late 2003, more than two years after I had left Serbia.

10 I am absolutely convinced of that because in the book published

11 by former Chief Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, I read that at a secret

12 meeting held in the Netherlands on the 2nd of April, 2003, the Foreign

13 Minister of Serbia, Goran Svilanovic and the Minister of the Interior,

14 Dusan Mihajlovic spoke with Chief Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte about their

15 continued cooperation and future indictments. On that occasion, the

16 Minister of the Interior, Mihajlovic, said that the government of Serbia

17 would be overjoyed if the Tribunal in The Hague would indict

18 General Djordjevic. That's at page 195.

19 When the indictment against me, General Pavkovic,

20 General Lazarevic, and General Lukic was handed over, Zoran Zivkovic, the

21 then Prime Minister of Serbia, this is what Carla Del Ponte says, refused

22 to take receipt of the indictment, but when he looked at the names, he

23 said, "Djordjevic, no problem." That's at page 205 of the same book.

24 Your Honours, I hope that in the course of a fair trial, I will

25 be able to prove that the allegations made by the Prosecution are

Page 242

1 unfounded. I did not have effective control over the MUP units that were

2 active in the area of Kosovo and Metohija in the period relevant for the

3 indictment. I did not know, I did not have reason to know, that my

4 subordinates committed widespread crimes against the Albania population.

5 I did not receive any information about punishable conduct of the MUP

6 units. Within the limits of my power, I took legal action against the

7 perpetrators of crime, and we also carried out preventive actions to

8 prevent crimes. You also have to bear in mind the actual real-life

9 situation at the time when all of this was going on and the actual

10 capability for acting promptly.

11 I'm sorry for all the victims in Kosovo and Metohija. I feel

12 sorry for the families. I deeply sympathise with their pain. I would

13 really wish to see this war, the war in Kosovo and Metohija, to be the

14 last war ever waged there; and I would like to see all the problems being

15 resolved by political means, by talks, and agreements.

16 Thank you very much for hearing me out.

17 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you very much. If you'd be good enough to

18 switch off your microphone. Thank you. It reduces, then, the humming.

19 We have now given the accused the opportunity which he sought,

20 allowed by the rules, to make a personal statement at this time and that

21 has been recorded, and we have noted its content.

22 That concludes the preliminary statement procedures for this

23 trial. The next stage is for the actual evidence for the Prosecution to

24 be led. Following that, of course, the Defence will have an opportunity

25 to present its case in answer to the Prosecution evidence.