Page 7495
1 Thursday, 16 July 2009
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 9.02 a.m.
5 JUDGE PARKER: Good morning, sir.
6 THE WITNESS: Good morning, Your Honour.
7 JUDGE PARKER: I should remind you, the affirmation you made to
8 tell the truth still --
9 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Your Honour.
10 JUDGE PARKER: I will repeat so that I'm on air.
11 The affirmation you made to tell the truth still applies, and
12 Ms. Kravetz continues her questions.
13 MS. KRAVETZ: Thank you, Your Honour.
14 WITNESS: ANDRAS JANOS RIEDLMAYER [Resumed]
15 Examination by Ms. Kravetz: [Continued]
16 Q. Good morning, Mr. Riedlmayer.
17 A. Good morning.
18 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we please have Exhibit P1098 up on the screen
19 and I would like page 13 of that.
20 Q. Yesterday when we left off we were speaking about your report on
21 the Kosovo Cultural Heritage Project, and I would like you to comment on
22 a page of your report which will soon be up on the screen before you.
23 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could have only the English displayed for the
24 witness.
25 THE WITNESS: This is the results of our survey projected onto a
Page 7496
1 map. The different-coloured dots represent monuments that had been
2 damaged or destroyed. The different colours pertain to the category of
3 architecture that we're talking about. Yellow is historic civil
4 architecture, red is architecture of the Islamic heritage in Kosovo, blue
5 is Catholic architecture, and purple is Orthodox architecture, Serbian
6 Orthodox. And the size of the dot represents the number of sites at any
7 given location that were destroyed or damaged. As you can see, it's a
8 small territory and the damage was quite pervasive. It wasn't isolated
9 to a particular area.
10 MS. KRAVETZ:
11 Q. Thank you. We see that this map has the date below in the legend
12 of March 1998 to October 1999. I understand that's the period that's
13 covered by your report. In your report you indicate - and I believe this
14 is on page 8 --
15 A. I don't have a copy with me.
16 Q. It's okay. That -- you give the number of mosques destroyed and
17 you say that that is approximately 225 in total. Now, is this number for
18 the entire period of March 1998 to 1999 or does it cover a specific
19 period?
20 A. It covers the entire period of the survey of the -- that we
21 covered for the survey, so damage that occurred from the first spring and
22 summer of the armed conflict until June of 1999. And then continuing
23 through the time of our survey, which was October of 1999.
24 Q. And yesterday you told us about how you went about conducting
25 this survey. How were you able to establish whether damage to the
Page 7497
1 mosques that you considered for this survey was done in 1998 or in 1999,
2 how did you obtain that information?
3 A. We had a number of sources of information. The primary source of
4 course was the affected community, the various churches or the Islamic
5 Community, who almost invariably stated when their monuments were damaged
6 or destroyed. However, we tried, whenever possible, to confirm that kind
7 of information through informant statements, if any informants came
8 forward, if they had seen it.
9 Secondly, media accounts, for example, during the first summer of
10 the war, in the summer of 1998, there were a number of journalists in
11 Kosovo, many more than stayed during the spring of 1999. And in their
12 reports they would observe that in a certain village a mosque was damaged
13 or similar kind of damage. And so that allowed us to confirm dates and
14 establish them that day. Whenever possible, we always tried to
15 corroborate information from multiple independent sources.
16 Q. And if we could very briefly go back to the map on page 13, I
17 wanted to know just generally regarding the findings of your report if
18 you could compare your results with respect to Islamic monuments and
19 Orthodox and Catholic monuments that are depicted there on the map.
20 A. Okay. The Islamic monuments suffered the greatest damage during
21 the war. The damage in the summer of 1998, the first cycle of armed
22 conflict was relatively more limited, I think about 40 different sites
23 got hit then. The bulk of the damage to the Islamic heritage occurred
24 between March and June of 1999.
25 In terms of the Serbian Orthodox heritage, we could find no
Page 7498
1 confirmation that any Orthodox monuments had been damaged before
2 June of 1999, but then at the end of hostilities, as the Albanian
3 refugees started returning, the Serbian security forces were withdrawing
4 from Kosovo. There was a wave of attacks on Serbian churches and
5 monasteries during the first several months after the end of the war.
6 The Catholic heritage was relatively unaffected by the war, with
7 the exception of a small number of churches in the west of Kosovo right
8 near the Albanian border and in the Klina area in the north, just east of
9 Pec. There were a few Albanian village churches that got damaged or
10 destroyed.
11 Q. And with respect to the Islamic heritage, based on what you were
12 able to observe and upon the information you obtained from the sources
13 while you were conducting this survey, were there any areas that were
14 more affected than others by this time?
15 A. Yes. If you look at this map, and there are also maps that
16 separate out the various damage, but if you will look at the distribution
17 of the red dots which represent the Islamic heritage on this map, you
18 will see certain areas where there was virtually no damage. Quite
19 obviously, first of all, there are areas where there were very few
20 mosques to begin with because they were primarily Serbian population. So
21 the far north of Kosovo, the area around Strpce in the south, and in the
22 far east, where again it's mixed population.
23 The one area where the population is overwhelmingly Muslim but
24 not Albanian is -- stands out; it's the far southern tip of Kosovo around
25 Brod and Dragas. There the population are Gorani, who are Muslim Slavs.
Page 7499
1 They are Muslims. Every village has a mosque, but they had good
2 relations with the Belgrade
3 villages was damaged during the war.
4 Q. Thank you for that.
5 MS. KRAVETZ: Now I would like to move to a different exhibit.
6 This is Exhibit 01799, if we could have that up on the screen. And this
7 is a set of photographs.
8 Q. Do you have that before you, Mr. Riedlmayer?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Do you recognise this photograph?
11 A. Yes, it is a photo of the Charshi, or market mosque, in Vucitrn.
12 It's a town north of Pristina.
13 Q. And was this one of the photographs that you obtained while you
14 were conducting your survey?
15 A. Yes, it is a pre-war photo taken in late 1998 by a local
16 historian Raif Virmica just before the war.
17 Q. Thank you.
18 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we move to page 2 of this exhibit.
19 Q. Now, while this is coming up on the screen, yesterday when you
20 were explaining how you conducted the survey you spoke about assessment
21 of damage and how you would grade the damage in each site, and I would
22 just -- we're going to go through a series of photographs, but I would
23 just ask you, using this as an example, if you could explain to the
24 Chamber how you went about grading the damage that you observed at each
25 site. And if you could first tell us what is depicted here in the
Page 7500
1 photograph.
2 A. We are looking at approximately the same vantage point. This is
3 what remained of this mosque after the war. In the foreground you can
4 see rubble. In the background you can see intact apartment buildings.
5 If Your Honours will observe at the top left quadrant of the screen,
6 there is an apartment building that is yellowish and brownish with a
7 triangular cable.
8 Q. There is a pen on the side of the screen if you wish to point.
9 MS. KRAVETZ: Maybe the usher could assist the witness.
10 THE WITNESS: If you could.
11 MS. KRAVETZ:
12 Q. If you could just mark it and that way we can see what you're
13 pointing at.
14 A. This apartment building can also be seen in the pre-war photo
15 which allows you to orient yourself to see what you're looking at. If
16 you switch back to the pre-war photo, I can point that out.
17 Q. I think we first need to have this admitted before we move to the
18 previous page.
19 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
20 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this marked photo will be P01100.
21 THE WITNESS: And this is a photo that I took in October of 1999.
22 MS. KRAVETZ:
23 Q. So this would have been one of the sites you visited?
24 A. Yes.
25 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we now move back to the first photograph we
Page 7501
1 were looking at earlier. It's page 1 of this exhibit.
2 THE WITNESS: I will now mark the same apartment building. It's
3 not doing it.
4 MS. KRAVETZ:
5 Q. There. I think now you can mark.
6 A. So you can see it in the background immediately to the left of
7 the mosque.
8 Q. I had asked you earlier if you could explain to Your Honours how
9 you graded the damage in each of the sites that you visited, if we could
10 use this as an example.
11 A. Certainly. If you will take a close look at where the mosque is,
12 to the left of the mosque are some concrete steps that go up to an
13 ablution fountain which is used for people to wash themselves before
14 praying. If you go to the post-war picture, you will see the remnants of
15 the concrete steps and to the right you will see just the bare
16 foundations of the mosque rubble. This is an example of our top damage
17 category, completely destroyed. There is no element of the building
18 remaining above ground.
19 Q. In addition to that category, did you use other categories to
20 grade damage that you observed --
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. -- at each of these sites?
23 A. Yes, we -- Mr. Herscher and I, before setting out on our field
24 trip to Kosovo, established damage categories which were modelled after
25 damage categories used by UNHCR and by heritage authorities before the
Page 7502
1 war. We tried to make it as simple as possible so they would be based on
2 observational criteria and not require technical testing, for which we
3 had neither the equipment nor the time. The lowest level of damage
4 category obviously is intact, undamaged, meaning a building does not show
5 any signs of damage or any signs of recent repairs or reconstruction.
6 The next category of damage is lightly damaged. The lightly
7 damaged is a category that we used very conservatively, meaning that a
8 building was called lightly damaged as long as no principal structural
9 element of the building had been impaired. So a building that had had
10 the top of the minaret shot off or a hole in the wall would still be
11 called lightly damaged.
12 The next category would be seriously damaged or severely damaged.
13 That category would involve usually impairment -- structural impairment
14 of one or more of the main elements of the building itself. Often this
15 would be compound damage. A building would be missing its roof, part of
16 a wall fallen in. Usually this would be a building that would require
17 extensive or complete reconstruction.
18 The next category is almost destroyed. This is a building where
19 almost all of the elements had been damaged or destroyed but there were
20 still visible elements of the building standing above ground. So, for
21 example, you know, if part of a wall is still standing or part of a
22 minaret is still sticking up, that would be almost destroyed if the rest
23 of the building was unsalvageable.
24 And we have here the top category, which is completely destroyed.
25 Q. Thank you for that.
Page 7503
1 MS. KRAVETZ: I would like to move to page 3 of this exhibit, but
2 before we do that I would like to tender this marked photograph.
3 JUDGE PARKER: It too will be received.
4 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01101.
5 MS. KRAVETZ:
6 Q. And do you recognise the structure that's depicted here in this
7 photograph?
8 A. Yes, this is another photograph that I took. It's another mosque
9 in Vucitrn. It's the oldest mosque in Vucitrn, the mosque of
10 Gazi Ali-beg. You can see that the minaret has been sheered off and has
11 fallen on top of the mosque, smashing part of the roof.
12 Q. How would you grade this type of damage?
13 A. This we called lightly damaged still. Because as you can see
14 only part of the roof has been stove-in and the main part of the building
15 is still standing.
16 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we go to the next photograph -- next page of
17 this exhibit.
18 Q. And could you comment on this photograph, please.
19 A. This is the third mosque in Vucitrn, the Karamanli mosque. It
20 dates from the 17th century. Once again the minaret has been sheered
21 off. We actually had an informant who stated that he watched a tank or
22 armoured vehicle come up to the immediate vicinity of the mosque and
23 shoot at the minaret, causing it to collapse. As you can see, it smashed
24 a considerable portion of the roof, and I was initially proposing that we
25 call this severely damaged. And Mr. Herscher and I had an argument about
Page 7504
1 it and he insisted that we call it lightly damaged. And since he's the
2 architect, I deferred to him. So we classed that as lightly damaged.
3 Q. Thank you.
4 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we see the next photograph in this exhibit,
5 page 5.
6 THE WITNESS: This is a view of the interior of that mosque,
7 showing part of the collapsed minaret and collapsed roof which fell into
8 the interior after it smashed through the roof structure.
9 MS. KRAVETZ:
10 Q. And this is also a site that you personally visited?
11 A. Yes, the same one as before.
12 Q. Thank you.
13 MS. KRAVETZ: I would like to tender this set of five photographs
14 into evidence, Your Honour.
15 JUDGE PARKER: They will be received.
16 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, 65 ter 01799 will be
17 Exhibit P01102.
18 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we now please have Exhibit 02456 up on the
19 screen.
20 And, Your Honours, while this is being brought up I just wanted
21 to explain that I'm going to be showing a number of attachments to the
22 report during my examination. These have been uploaded as separate
23 exhibits in our e-court system simply because the copy of the report and
24 the attachments in e-court do not contain any coloured photographs and
25 it's very difficult to make out what is depicted in the photographs. So
Page 7505
1 there is some overlap or some duplication between these exhibits that I
2 will be showing and the ones that are already part of the report. I'm
3 just explaining that for purpose of clarity.
4 Q. I don't know if you have that up on your screen.
5 A. Not yet.
6 Q. It hasn't been displayed yet.
7 MS. KRAVETZ: Maybe I can provide the witness with a hard copy
8 while we're waiting for that to be displayed.
9 Q. We don't have the exhibit yet, but it's the 65 ter -- oh, I think
10 it's coming up.
11 A. Here it is. Yes.
12 Q. Could you explain what this is, this document we have here.
13 A. What we have is the part of the entry from the database that we
14 compiled as part of the report for the monument we just saw in the
15 previous exhibit.
16 Would you like me to explain the categories?
17 Q. Yes, please.
18 A. We constructed this form in order to assist the Court if there
19 were witnesses, for example, we would put in any variant forms of the
20 name of the mosque. Here they all look very similar. And some mosques,
21 they have multiple names which don't resemble each other. Then we would
22 put in the name of the town and the district in Serbian and Albanian. We
23 carried a GPS
24 order to make it possible for anyone to go and check. We put in the date
25 of construction and restoration, the historical period, the category
Page 7506
1 where there is a religious building, civic building, and so forth. Then
2 the type of the building, in this case a mosque. The setting, where
3 there is city, village, or country-side. The setting relationship is an
4 architectural term that has to do whether it is an asset to the site or
5 sticks out like an eye sore. This is mainly to assist the planning
6 authorities who were, sort of, the other audience for our survey. Then
7 the building condition, lightly damaged and under reconstruction, they
8 were clearing the rubble when we got there. Occupancy speaks for itself,
9 that it was in use. And we always made a point of examining other
10 buildings adjacent to it to see whether they were damaged. That gives
11 some indication of whether a building has been singled out or whether it
12 is part of a more widespread pattern of destruction.
13 Q. Now, underneath the photograph we have the name of Sabri Bajgora.
14 Could you explain who he was?
15 MS. KRAVETZ: And while the witness is doing that, if we could
16 have the second page displayed since this exhibit seems to be taking some
17 time in the e-court system.
18 Q. Who was Mr. Sabri -- or who is Mr. Sabri Bajgora?
19 A. Mr. Sabri Bajgora is the deputy mufti of Kosovo and at the end of
20 the conflict he took it upon himself to travel throughout the area and
21 visit the various Islamic congregations that are part of the Islamic
22 Community of Kosovo, of which he was deputy head at the time, and he took
23 photographs and also collected photographs from local people documenting
24 the damage.
25 When we arrived in Kosovo, our first task was to visit various
Page 7507
1 people who might have documentation ranging from the monuments authority
2 to the various religious communities. When we visited the Islamic
3 Community's headquarters in Pristina, he showed us his photographs and
4 first offered to give us a CD. And I asked him if he could have the
5 originals so there would be no question that these were not manipulated
6 photographs but the actual prints, which I have in my archive. I used
7 his photograph in this case because it shows the site immediately at the
8 end of the war. By the time we got there, some of the rubble had been
9 cleaned up.
10 Q. Thank you. We can look at the second page which is now being
11 displayed. It's the back of the sheet you have there. There is a
12 section called "Informant Statements" and I would just like to ask you if
13 you could explain how that information that's contained there was
14 collected by you or obtained by you?
15 A. When we arrived at this site, as in many other cases when we
16 arrived at a site, started taking photographs. A crowd gathered. This
17 gentleman here, Mr. Azim Xhyshinca owned a shop across the corner from
18 the mosque and he volunteered that he had been in his shop and watched as
19 the mosque was destroyed. So we took down the basics of what he said.
20 It's not a verbatim statement but a summary that we wrote down as he
21 spoke and then took his contact information in case there was any
22 interest in contacting him further.
23 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we have page 3 displayed.
24 Q. And while that's being done, could you explain what impact these
25 external sources had in your assessment of the damage to the different
Page 7508
1 sites that you visited if any.
2 A. The external sources meaning the statements from other --
3 Q. From other persons.
4 A. Had no impact on the assessment of the damage. The damage was
5 entirely on visual criteria. But if the information was there, we
6 included it in order to assist the Court if they wanted to follow it up
7 and to give it whatever degree of credence they wish to.
8 Q. Yes, and here we see on this page you have a section called
9 "Bibliography" which began on the bottom of the last page and it's on the
10 top of this page. Was that material you relied on?
11 A. Yes. Bibliography, meaning both before we went to Kosovo and
12 after we came back, I did extensive library research. Before we went to
13 Kosovo the reason I did that is looking for pre-destruction photographs
14 and ground-plans. The ground-plans turned out to be extremely useful in
15 the cases of buildings which had been completely destroyed, where you
16 could follow-up the foundation outlines. Pre-destruction photographs
17 could equally be useful because they often showed features in the
18 background that one could match up. And so these often appeared in
19 publications. The other use of the bibliography of the publications is
20 that they give some indications of what were the historically important
21 buildings that we should check out what happened to them.
22 Q. And we see there's also a section called "Media Accounts" which
23 in this particular form has been left empty. I think you have explained
24 earlier how you relied on media accounts.
25 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender this exhibit into
Page 7509
1 evidence.
2 JUDGE PARKER: Yes, it will be received.
3 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be P01103.
4 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could now move to Exhibit 01797. And if I
5 could have my copy back from the witness.
6 Q. Do you recognise what is depicted in this photograph, sir?
7 A. Yes. This is the historical centre of the town of Djakovica
8 Gjakova in Albanian, a town in western Kosovo. You see in the foreground
9 the burnt-out shops of the historic bazaar, and in the centre rear you
10 see the Hadum mosque. It's a 16th century mosque at the centre of the
11 bazaar and you can see that its minaret has been sheered off.
12 Q. And is this also a site that you personally visited?
13 A. It is.
14 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we see page 2 of this exhibit.
15 Q. Can you explain what is depicted in this photograph.
16 A. This is a photograph of the same historic bazaar taken just
17 before the war by the Institute for the Protection of Monuments of
18 Kosovo. It was used as part of an exhibit held at the beginning of 1999
19 in Thessaloniki
20 part of a European conference on the conservation of medieval markets and
21 the negatives were still in Pristina and we got a copy of the prints.
22 Q. Thank you.
23 MS. KRAVETZ: I would like to tender these two photographs,
24 Your Honours, 01797.
25 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
Page 7510
1 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01104.
2 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could now have Exhibit 01781 up on the
3 screen.
4 Q. Could you please comment on this document.
5 A. This is once again the database entry for the historic bazaar in
6 Djakovica or Gjakova. You see the Albanian, Serbian, and English names
7 of the bazaar on top, and you can see our assessment which is that it was
8 heavily damaged. You see the photographs. You see the same pre-war
9 photograph on top. The next photograph down we got from a news agency.
10 It was taken by a local resident the day of the burning of the bazaar and
11 shows part of the bazaar on fire. At the right is the damage
12 description.
13 Q. In the section on damage description, I believe that's
14 photograph 4, there's -- you refer to:
15 "Yugoslav authorities having claimed that the damage to the
16 bazaar and the Hadum mosque were caused by NATO strikes."
17 Could you comment on that information that you received based on
18 your observations when you were on site.
19 A. Well, the claim came in the Yugoslav government's White Book
20 which was issued in two volumes in 1999 containing various allegations on
21 destruction in -- during the war. We checked out each of these
22 allegations, including this one. And here both the pattern of the
23 destruction and the nature of the destruction seem to suggest that this
24 was destruction that had happened by fire from the ground up rather than
25 as a result of destruction by the air-strikes. Neither of us is a
Page 7511
1 military expert, however we observed that over a widespread area along
2 the streets of the bazaar, all the shops fronting the street were burned
3 out. The shops basically had only their separation walls left standing,
4 but the separation walls for the most part were undamaged and the
5 interior with all combustible material was destroyed.
6 There was no sign of any blast damage. Normally you would expect
7 rubble to be scattered, and we saw no sign of that. We also managed to
8 obtain photographs of the bazaar taken immediately after the war in June
9 and July before there had been any clean-up. And you could see -- you
10 could draw some fairly good common-sense conclusions from the nature of
11 the damage.
12 The other thing that struck us was the distribution of the
13 damage. The damage seemed to be confined to the shops immediately
14 fronting the street. There were certain buildings, a few of them that
15 were left intact. But otherwise, for an extent of several blocks, all of
16 them were damaged, yet the houses behind the shops in the neighbourhood
17 adjacent to it were, for the most part, untouched. And once again, one
18 would have expected if there had been such widespread damage from an
19 air-strike that there would have been also some damage that would have
20 spread away from the street.
21 MS. KRAVETZ: If we can see page 2 of this, top of page 2,
22 please.
23 Q. You referred to obtaining photographs from July. I just wanted
24 to know if the photographs we see here to the left is one of these
25 photographs.
Page 7512
1 A. Yes, this is from July of 1999. This is as returning residents
2 were cleaning up the rubble immediately after their return. The source
3 of the photograph was Mr. Xhavit Lokaj. Xhavit Lokaj was employed by the
4 Institute for the Protection of Monuments of Pristina -- of Kosovo in
5 Pristina. And he travelled through Kosovo during that summer and took a
6 lot of photos which he was willing to share with us.
7 Q. Thank you.
8 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender this exhibit into
9 evidence. It's 01781 and I ask that that be received.
10 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
11 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01105.
12 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we now have 02455 up on the screen.
13 Q. Do you recognise this photograph, sir; and if yes, could you
14 please comment? And if you would like to make any markings, you can use
15 the pen you have there.
16 A. Yes. This is an aerial or satellite photograph showing the same
17 area that we just discussed. It was -- is posted on the
18 US Department of Defence web site. I believe it's still available. And
19 I simply downloaded it. It was posted in response to a -- an allegation
20 by the Belgrade
21 Hadum mosque, which is at the centre of the photograph here, and the
22 surrounding bazaar had been destroyed by NATO bombing. And so the
23 photograph was displayed as an effort to show, A, that the mosque was
24 intact; and B, that the bazaar was burning, but that it was not the
25 result of bombing.
Page 7513
1 I conclude nothing from the claims, but the picture shown here
2 corresponds very largely to what we saw on our visit. This was taken at
3 the end of March 1999 on our visit in October 1999 on the ground. You
4 can see up and down this street here and along here destruction of shops.
5 You can see shops that are missing their roofs. You can see the
6 separation walls between them. And you can also see the neighbourhood
7 behind essentially undamaged. The mosque itself isn't damaged but there
8 is smoke rising from buildings adjacent to the mosque.
9 Right next to the mosque is the library of the Hadum mosque, and
10 it appears that smoke is drifting out of that. Across from it, here, is
11 an Islamic school which also was -- when we got there was completely
12 ruined and the locals said it was burning. The one additional damage we
13 saw which is not visible on this photograph is one side of this street
14 was also burned out when we got there.
15 The city of Djakovica
16 running from the north -- running north and south which separates the
17 eastern part of town, which is the more modern area, from the traditional
18 centre. And then in the south of the town is the Ereniku River
19 eventually runs into the Beli Drim, the main river in the west of Kosovo.
20 MS. KRAVETZ: Just for the clarity of the transcript, the witness
21 has drawn a circle to indicate the location of the mosque. He drew a
22 first line to the left of that circle from the top to the bottom of the
23 photograph to indicate where shops where that he observed destroyed. And
24 he also drew a second line on the top of the circle marking the mosque,
25 also to indicate another street where shops were destroyed. He has made
Page 7514
1 a marking to the left of the circle right adjacent to it to indicate the
2 location of the library and has made an additional marking to the right
3 of the location of the mosque, a larger circle to indicate another area
4 where he saw destruction when he visited the site.
5 Q. Thank you for that, sir.
6 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender this exhibit into
7 evidence.
8 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
9 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01106.
10 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we now have 65 ter 01796 up on the screen,
11 please.
12 Q. Do you recognise this photograph, sir?
13 A. Yes. This is the front of the Hadum mosque at the centre of the
14 old bazaar in Djakovica. This is another one of the photographs taken by
15 Xhavit Lokaj immediately at the end of the war, but it looked essentially
16 the same when we visit in October of 1999.
17 To the right you see the mosque. And if you will consult the
18 database later you will see that originally the mosque has an extended
19 wooden portico that extended maybe one and a half times the distance of
20 the remaining stone portico. All the wooden material has been burned.
21 You can see immediately to the right of the dome the base of the
22 minaret. From that other photo you saw that the top of the minaret had
23 been severed. To the left here you can see part of the ruins of the
24 Islamic school. And to the right of the mosque you can see the front
25 half of the mosque library which was a separate building, and the back of
Page 7515
1 the library was completely gone. I believe we will see a second picture
2 of that.
3 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender this Exhibit.
4 It's 01796.
5 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01107.
7 MS. KRAVETZ: The next document I would like to have up is 01782,
8 if we could have that up on the screen.
9 Q. We have another entry from your database, and I would just like
10 to ask you to comment on this one.
11 A. Once again you see the standard elements of our database,
12 including the assessment of the building condition, which is heavily
13 damaged. In this case there are multiple elements of the mosque that
14 were impaired. The portico had been burned down, the minaret had been
15 severed above the muezzins balcony. Parts of the rubble had fallen on
16 the dome damaging that. You see a general picture from a slightly more
17 distant view than we just saw before. That is one of the photographs I
18 got from Mr. Bajgora. Down below you see a close-up of the portico
19 itself. And to the right you see the damage description.
20 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we see page 2 of this exhibit, please.
21 THE WITNESS: I wanted to note from the previous page - you don't
22 need to screen back - at the bottom right it said "surveyor
23 Andrew Herscher." In fact, we visited each site together. The person
24 who got to sign it as surveyor was simply the person who was taking the
25 notes usually while the other person was holding the camera, so it's
Page 7516
1 interchangeable.
2 MS. KRAVETZ:
3 Q. And we see here that there's a photograph taken by you on site
4 during your visit?
5 A. Right, and it shows the base of the minaret which is heavily
6 charred by fire. You can see at the left the portico of the mosque. At
7 the right you can see the front facade of the library and you can see
8 right through it because the back of the building is missing. And at the
9 right from a book published in 1998 you can see what the portico looked
10 like immediately before the war as well as the minaret with the top still
11 on it. You can see that in front of the three small domes of the stone
12 portico there is a large extension. The reason for this, this is found
13 in many mosques in the Balkans, is that the climate is fairly severe.
14 And when there is a large congregation, as on a Muslim holiday which are
15 movable feasts and therefore occur during the winter in some years, as
16 well as for funerals, there will be large crowds and they need shelter
17 from the weather. So in many cases old mosques had these wooden
18 extensions put on. This one dates from the early 19th century.
19 Q. Thank you.
20 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender this Exhibit.
21 It's 01782.
22 JUDGE PARKER: Yes, it will be received.
23 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be P01108.
24 MS. KRAVETZ: The next paragraph I want to move to is 01795, if
25 we could have that up on the screen.
Page 7517
1 Q. And could you comment on this photograph, sir.
2 A. This is a view of the mosque library taken from the rear of the
3 library. To your right you see the base of the minaret and you can see
4 that the building has essentially been chopped in half. Both on my --
5 this particular photograph was taken immediately after the war by
6 Mr. Bajgora, but this is exactly what the building looked like at the
7 time of our October 1999 visit. Both at that time and at later -- on two
8 subsequent visits, I inspected the rubble inside and found elements of
9 the minaret that were recognisable, such as parts of the carved stone
10 balcony of the minaret -- of the minaret balcony where the prayer call is
11 issued from which were in the rubble.
12 As you can also see, the interior has signs of charring. The
13 little niches in the walls are where the books were kept. The library
14 had two levels, separated by a wooden floor, which is gone. And we could
15 see charred bits of wood where the floor had been anchored in the walls.
16 The informant statement told us that the damage to the library
17 had occurred in two phases. The library itself had been burned at the
18 same time that the wooden portico had been burned at the beginning of the
19 war in March of 1999, and the minaret had been decapitated in
20 early May of 1999. And that's when the rear of the library was sheered
21 off.
22 Q. Thank you. And just for clarity, you were talking about a
23 library adjacent to the same mosque we were looking at earlier, the
24 Hadum mosque?
25 A. Yes, the library also dates from the 16th century, although this
Page 7518
1 particular building is from the early 18th century.
2 Q. Thank you.
3 MS. KRAVETZ: I seek to tender this photograph. It's 01795.
4 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
5 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01109.
6 MS. KRAVETZ: And if we could have 01783 up on the screen.
7 Q. And we'll just look at this very briefly, again, an entry from
8 your database.
9 A. If you scroll down. The building is classed as heavily damaged
10 and that needs no further explanation in this case. If you scroll down,
11 perhaps the next page, the informant statement contains the information
12 about what was in the library and how it was destroyed.
13 Q. And this would have been a person you spoke to personally while
14 you were --
15 A. In both of these cases these were people I spoke to. The
16 information on the contents of the library came from
17 Professor Nexhat Krasniqi. He is the keeper of rare books and
18 manuscripts at the National University Library in Pristina. And so he
19 informed me that there had been about 200 manuscripts and 1500 old and
20 rare books in the library. And the information as left came from
21 Mr. Xhahit Bashe, B-a-s-h-e, he turned up as I was taking pictures of the
22 mosque, introduced himself as a senior member of the mosque congregation,
23 and gave the information you saw there about how the library was burned
24 and how the damaged occurred.
25 Q. And based on your observations on site, this was all one part of
Page 7519
1 one same complex, the mosque and library were all one same --
2 A. They were all the foundation of Hadum Sulejmani who was a native
3 of the region who rose to high rank in the Ottoman Empire and who endowed
4 these buildings, the school, the library, and the mosque.
5 Q. Thank you.
6 MS. KRAVETZ: I seek to tender this into evidence, Your Honour.
7 It's 01783.
8 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
9 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01110.
10 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could now have P614 up on the screen.
11 THE INTERPRETER: The speakers are kindly asked not to overlap
12 for the sake of interpreters.
13 MS. KRAVETZ: My apologies for that.
14 Q. Do you recognise this building depicted in the photograph, sir?
15 A. Yes. It is the white mosque or Xhamija Bardhe in Suva Reka,
16 which is a small town north of Prizren. This is a picture that
17 Mr. Herscher took. What you can see here is the entrance of the mosque,
18 and if you take a careful look on the right you will see signs of damage.
19 At the right is where the minaret was, no longer is at this point, and
20 you can see some damage to the domes next to the minaret due to the
21 destruction of the minaret.
22 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we now move to the next page of this exhibit.
23 THE WITNESS: You're looking at the same building. Basically
24 we've gone around the right-hand corner of the building. At the left of
25 the photo you can see the side of the front portico and you can see here
Page 7520
1 the base of the minaret. You can see that the minaret has been
2 destroyed, and you can see some signs of how it might have been
3 destroyed. This -- I took this from standing next to it from the
4 outside, and you can see that the base of the minaret has basically been
5 ballooned outwards. Parts of it are sticking out. Every minaret is a
6 hollow tube with a staircase going up the centre, and it seems very
7 evident, to me at least, that there was an explosion inside the minaret
8 that pushed it outwards. This was confirmed when I went inside the
9 mosque and you can see on top an opening. The minaret was entered from
10 the women's balcony inside the mosque. Traditional mosque like Orthodox
11 Jewish synagogues have the women separate from the men on a balcony above
12 the entrance and the entrance to the minaret was from the women's
13 balcony. And standing on the women's balcony you could see radiating
14 signs of blast, meaning there were scorch marks on the wall and parts of
15 the balcony had been damaged, so, again, confirming that there had been
16 an explosion inside the minaret.
17 MS. KRAVETZ: Now I would to move to another exhibit, this
18 exhibit is already in evidence. It's 01779.
19 Q. And this is again an entry from your database. And we see on
20 this entry one of the photographs that was just shown to you. I wanted
21 your comments on one sentence that's under the damage heading, which is
22 the second paragraph which says:
23 "Minaret blown up by Serbs on Bajram (Muslim holiday,
24 28th of March ..."
25 If you could just tell us how you obtained that information.
Page 7521
1 A. If you will scroll down, I don't know if it's possible, you will
2 see the source of the information which came from the informant --
3 Q. I think that's on the next page in this version in e-court.
4 And --
5 A. And as I recall in this case, we had -- oops, that's a little too
6 far. Yes.
7 MS. KRAVETZ: It's page 2. I think we're on page 3.
8 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
9 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could have page 2, please.
10 Q. Just go ahead. You were ...
11 A. Okay. The gentleman who -- here you have it, yes. The gentleman
12 who gave us the information -- oh, here you see the picture from the
13 inside of the women's balcony at the left. Right below it is the
14 informant statement. The gentleman who gave the statement was a local
15 resident who had a house across the street from the mosque and who told
16 us that on the 28th of March, which was the day of the Bajram, the major
17 Muslim holiday, the Albanians in town were forbidden to leave their
18 houses. And at noon
19 minaret was gone. So that is part of where the information came from.
20 We also spoke to the imam of the mosque, who is quoted in one of the
21 media accounts below, and he confirmed it.
22 Q. Now, we saw on the first page that the damage to this mosque was
23 graded as lightly damaged?
24 A. Again, because the principal structure was not really severely
25 affected. The minaret is gone, but the minaret is a subsidiary element
Page 7522
1 of the building. What makes it tragic in this case is that it was a very
2 old mosque to begin with, but in very bad shape. And just before the
3 war, the main structure of the mosque had been completely rebuilt and the
4 only historic part remaining was the minaret. And so now that is gone as
5 well.
6 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender this into evidence.
7 It's 01779. I ask that that be received.
8 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
9 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01111.
10 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could now have P634 up on the screen, and
11 this is, again, a photograph.
12 Q. Do you recognise this photograph, sir?
13 A. Yes. It is a pre-war photo of the mosque in the village of
14 Celine.
15 Q. And was this one of the photographs you obtained from one of your
16 sources?
17 A. Yes. This photograph was supplied by Dr. Xhabir Hamiti who is
18 the secretary of the Islamic Community of Kosovo.
19 Q. Thank you.
20 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we now move to 65 ter 01800, please.
21 Q. And while that's coming up, do you know approximately when that
22 photograph that we just saw was taken, if you recall?
23 A. It was taken before the war is all I was told. So I assume 1998
24 or earlier.
25 Q. And do you recognise this site that is depicted in this
Page 7523
1 photograph?
2 A. It is the same mosque, a picture taken after the war. The
3 photograph in this case came from Mr. Bajgora, I believe.
4 Q. And how were you able to tell that this was the same site?
5 A. Well, first I was told it was the same site, and it's a little
6 hard looking at the post-destruction photo to even tell that it was a
7 mosque. However, the one recognisable element in the photo is that
8 semicircular structure in the centre --
9 Q. Would you mind using your pen to indicate it.
10 A. This here. If you look at it carefully, first of all, you can
11 see it's arched shape and that it is concrete with bricks inserted on
12 their end, at the outer perimeter, an ornamental feature. And upon
13 examination of the photo and the previous photo, I conclude that this is
14 part of the minaret balcony. If you can flip back to the previous photo
15 I can show you --
16 Q. We first need to tender this photograph into evidence.
17 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours.
18 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
19 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this marked photograph will be
20 Exhibit P01112.
21 MS. KRAVETZ: And the previous photograph we were looking at is
22 P634, if we could have that back up on the screen.
23 Q. And is this again a site you visited yourself?
24 A. No, Celine is not one of the sites we visited.
25 Q. And when you did your assessment on the damage, would that have
Page 7524
1 been based on the photographs you received?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. If you could indicate what you were trying to explain earlier on
4 this photograph.
5 A. The part I circled is the bottom of the balcony. This is a
6 fairly recent mosque. I'm told it was built around the 1970s. The main
7 body of the minaret is made of reinforced concrete and the balcony was
8 the only decorated element. And the -- in this case the balcony just had
9 a metal railing, but the bottom of the balcony had the ornamentation.
10 Q. Thank you.
11 MS. KRAVETZ: I seek to tender this marked photograph,
12 Your Honours, into evidence.
13 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
14 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01113.
15 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could now have 01773 up on the screen.
16 Q. And this is, again, an entry from your database. You have
17 already explained the structure of these entries. I just wanted to ask
18 you about one of the institutions here -- or sources listed as surveyor,
19 the EU/IMG
20 briefly.
21 A. IMG
22 inter-governmental organisation which was commissioned by the
23 European Community to conduct a survey of damage to infrastructure in
24 Kosovo after the 1999 war. And they set up teams in every Kosovo
25 municipality, with the task of essentially documenting infrastructure.
Page 7525
1 Their focus was on public facilities such as schools, hospitals, bridges,
2 and so forth; but fortunately they also included among their categories
3 cultural infrastructure, one element of which was houses of worship. And
4 so they were willing to share their database with us even though it was
5 produced internally. It was not a published document.
6 Q. Did this database contain photographs of the destroyed sites?
7 A. Yes, it did. Each entry had one or more photographs, it also had
8 basic categories of description, both when the date of construction was,
9 what the construction materials were, and then categories, some of which
10 didn't really fit historic buildings very well, such as: Did it have
11 sewage connections or, you know, electric power or telephone link,
12 because their focus really was on modern public buildings.
13 But for us the most part was the photographs. Because they had
14 large local staff they could cover much broader area than we were in
15 condition to do. I must explain that although Kosovo is a relatively
16 small territory, the roads were in terrible shape and some of the
17 villages were extremely remote. And it would have taken hours and a
18 four-wheel drive vehicle to get to some of them. So we were very
19 fortunate to have photographs of places that we couldn't go to.
20 And because this was managed under the auspices of the
21 European Union by professionals, we had some confidence that at least the
22 photographs depicted what they say they depicted. We had a -- slightly
23 more reservations about the way the damage description was structured.
24 And maybe if you can show an entry from their database, I can explain
25 that later.
Page 7526
1 Q. We will get to that later.
2 A. Yeah.
3 Q. Thank you for that explanation.
4 MS. KRAVETZ: At this stage, Your Honours, I seek to tender this
5 exhibit. It's 01773.
6 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
7 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01114.
8 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we now have 02444 up on the screen.
9 Q. And I would just ask you to explain what this document that's
10 going to come up is. If you could just very briefly tell us.
11 A. Okay. This is an extract from the cadastral register for the
12 municipality of Orahovac
13 is basically the land records. And this was obtained for me by
14 Mr. Xhabir Hamiti the secretary of the Islamic Community. What it is is
15 the record for the mosque at Celine which it gives basic description as
16 to what -- how many square metres the building is, how many square metres
17 the plot of ground is, and its owner is the Islamic Community of Kosovo.
18 Q. Thank you for that explanation.
19 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender this exhibit.
20 It's 02444.
21 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
22 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01115.
23 MS. KRAVETZ: The next document is 01806, if we could have that
24 up on the screen.
25 Q. Do you recognise what is depicted on this photograph, sir?
Page 7527
1 A. Yes, and this is a photograph that I took. It's the mosque at
2 the village of Rogovo
3 monument. And what you're looking at is the remains of the minaret. You
4 can see part of the staircase exposed right below the big gap in the
5 building. And you can also see that the minaret has collapsed onto the
6 building. You can see the damage to the dome, cracks to the main
7 structure. And on the left was a portico with domes on it that has also
8 been crushed.
9 Q. Thank you.
10 MS. KRAVETZ: I seek to tender this photograph, Your Honours.
11 It's 01806.
12 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
13 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01116.
14 MS. KRAVETZ: And if we could now move 01784, please.
15 Q. And this is again an entry from your database. I would just ask
16 you very briefly to comment on the two photographs that we see at the
17 bottom of the page. If we could zoom in.
18 A. I would like to correct something I said just before -- the
19 portico which is actually grouped around the courtyard didn't have domes,
20 it had a tile roof. I misspoke.
21 You have here -- the first photo you saw was taken from the
22 right-hand side where the minaret used to be, and here you can see some
23 of the damage to the portico roof as well, but also the fact that the
24 minaret is not there. And the photo below is a pre-war photo from 1997,
25 which shows the minaret still intact. That's one of the photographs we
Page 7528
1 got from the -- from a local historian named Raif Virmica, who allowed us
2 to take copies of his photographs.
3 Q. And I see that under the heading "Damage" it says:
4 "Attack on mosque took place on 3rd April, 1999, according to
5 village residents."
6 Did you personally have the opportunity to speak to residents?
7 A. Yes. They were rather vague about it because nobody claimed to
8 have witnessed it personally, but the owner of the shop across the street
9 from the mosque named a woman in a village several miles away that
10 allegedly saw it. I put down that information, vague as it was, in case
11 somebody needed to track it down. But I wouldn't place very great
12 reliance on the date.
13 Q. Thank you for that.
14 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender this exhibit.
15 It's 01784.
16 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
17 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01117.
18 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we now move to 00098.
19 Q. And again, sir, this is a photograph and I would ask you to just
20 comment on what is depicted there. I see that that is up on the screen.
21 And if you need to indicate anything I would ask you to use the pen that
22 you have there.
23 A. Okay. This is yet another of those photographs posted on the
24 US Defence Department web site. It shows the village of Bela Crkva
25 Kosovo. At the centre of the photograph on the left you can see a
Page 7529
1 mosque. The photograph is taken at a slight angle so you can actually
2 see the minaret. You can see the main dome of the mosque to the right of
3 the minaret and the entry of the mosque with three small domes to the
4 left of the minaret. The picture on the right says that it is the
5 building. In order to understand it you have to understand also that the
6 angle is reversed. If you look at the curve of the river, this is coming
7 the other direction. If you look at the three little domes, they face
8 the river in both pictures. And the conspicuous difference is that,
9 first of all, you can see the village houses all around no longer have
10 roofs and the mosque no longer has a minaret.
11 Q. Could you please draw a circle just to indicate where the mosque
12 is on the photograph to the right.
13 A. [Marks]
14 Q. Thank you.
15 MS. KRAVETZ: And just for the sake of the transcript the witness
16 drew a circle on the photograph on the left, a large circle, to indicate
17 the location of the mosque and smaller circles within that circle to
18 indicate the domes. And he's also drawn a circle in the photograph -- on
19 the photograph to the right to indicate the location where the mosque
20 was.
21 Q. Thank you for that.
22 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender this marked
23 photograph into evidence. It's 00098.
24 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
25 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be P01118.
Page 7530
1 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could now have 01792 up on the screen.
2 Q. And while this is coming up, the dates that are shown on this
3 photograph that we just saw are those dates that were available on the
4 web site when you consulted it?
5 A. Yes. The photo was as taken from the web site.
6 Q. Thank you. Do you recognise this photograph, sir?
7 A. Yes. It is a picture of the same mosque taken from the ground.
8 And I don't recall for certain, but I believe it's another one from
9 Mr. Bajgora. And what you see here is the large dome of the mosque at
10 the right of the building and the three small domes, one of them
11 completely crushed to the left of it. And the big gap in the centre of
12 the building is where the minaret was. Generally in the Balkans the
13 custom is to put the minaret to the right of the entrance. So the
14 entrance of the building is at the far left and the minaret would have
15 been on the right side of the building.
16 Q. Thank you for that explanation.
17 MS. KRAVETZ: I seek to tender this photograph. It's 01792.
18 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
19 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01119.
20 JUDGE PARKER: Is that a convenient time or are you --
21 MS. KRAVETZ: One more exhibit in relation --
22 JUDGE PARKER: One more, all right, we'll manage one more.
23 MS. KRAVETZ: So it's 01774.
24 Q. This is, again, an entry from your database. We see one of the
25 photographs is a photograph we just saw and there's a second photograph
Page 7531
1 below that.
2 A. Yes, that shows the damage to the interior. What you're looking
3 at is the prayer niche. And the minaret would have been to the right.
4 Q. Thank you. And I see under the section "Damage" you have noted
5 that this:
6 "Village site of atrocity is cited in Milosevic et al.
7 indictment."
8 Why did you include this information in this entry?
9 A. At the time we did our survey, we were not looking for
10 atrocities; however, as an assist to the Court, when we looked at
11 cultural damage and it happened to coincide with sites mentioned in the
12 indictment, we would note it.
13 Q. Thank you.
14 MS. KRAVETZ: I seek to tender this exhibit. It's 01774, and
15 this is a convenient time to break, Your Honour.
16 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
17 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01120.
18 JUDGE PARKER: We must have a break at this point for the tapes
19 to be rewound, and we resume in half an hour at 11.00. The Court Officer
20 will assist you in the break.
21 --- Recess taken at 10.28 a.m.
22 [The witness stands down]
23 --- On resuming at 11.00 a.m.
24 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honour, while the witness is being brought
25 in --
Page 7532
1 JUDGE PARKER: Yes, Ms. Kravetz.
2 MS. KRAVETZ: -- yesterday I made an oral application to add four
3 photographs for the Cirez site. I was wondering if -- what Your Honours'
4 position was on that matter since I'm going to be shortly moving to that
5 site and would like to use those photographs.
6 [Trial Chamber confers]
7 JUDGE PARKER: Now, we're to hear you on this, Mr. Djordjevic.
8 MR. DJORDJEVIC: As I promised yesterday and today, in connection
9 with the additional information received from the witness, I personally
10 believe that these -- this evidence could not be used at this stage of
11 the proceedings, particularly from the time that the report was drafted
12 to today. So much time has passed so that we no longer know what the
13 reason is to provide these photographs and the sources,
14 Human Rights Watch, are quite unreliable. Because in his testimony in
15 the Milutinovic case this witness to an explicit question from one of my
16 learned colleagues whether he cooperated with any non-governmental
17 organisations in obtaining the documents, being explicitly asked whether
18 he cooperated with Human Rights Watch said, Never. He said he only
19 cooperated with the Doctors for Human Rights, that was the only
20 organisation.
21 So the origin of these photographs is to be questioned, and just
22 to say that Human Rights Watch is the source without the author, the time
23 the photographs were taken, and so on, and other information I believe is
24 so problematic that this could not be used as evidence in this case.
25 So the Defence is opposed to having this evidence admitted into
Page 7533
1 evidence and against this material being used in evidence for this case.
2 Thank you, Your Honours.
3 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.
4 Ms. Kravetz.
5 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honour, the information that my learned
6 colleague is -- has just provided is not entirely accurate. We provided
7 assist to the Defence earlier this week, regarding the source of each one
8 of the photographs. These are not photographs, all of them, from
9 Human Rights Watch. There is only one, I believe it's the first one,
10 which was obtained by the witness.
11 He indicated when he came in -- to proofing earlier in the week
12 that he had obtained these photographs just before coming and that is the
13 reason why he had not provided them to the Office of the Prosecution
14 earlier. I believe that the source of two of the other photographs is
15 UNHCR and there's one from a local source. However, I believe the
16 witness is in a better position than I am to explain how he obtained the
17 four photographs and where exactly -- who provided them to him, if it was
18 each one of these organisations or if it was a third party.
19 [Trial Chamber confers]
20 JUDGE PARKER: Ms. Kravetz, these four photographs can be added
21 to the Rule 65 ter list. As you come to use each one, if you would be
22 kind enough to indicate they're one of the four photographs subject of
23 this motion. We will hear what the witness has to say about the source
24 of the photograph, and we will then hear anything that might be raised in
25 cross-examination in respect. And a final decision can then be made.
Page 7534
1 [The witness takes the stand]
2 JUDGE PARKER: Sorry delayed you for a moment. We had a
3 procedural issue.
4 THE WITNESS: Okay.
5 JUDGE PARKER: Yes, Ms. Kravetz.
6 MS. KRAVETZ: Thank you, Your Honour.
7 Could we now have 65 ter 01802 up on the screen.
8 Q. Do you recognise, sir, what is depicted in the photograph?
9 A. Yes, I believe I do. It's a pre-war photo of a mosque next to
10 the bridge in Mitrovica.
11 Q. Is this one of the sites you visited while conducting your
12 survey?
13 A. Yes, it is.
14 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we see page 2 of this exhibit.
15 Q. And can you explain what is depicted here.
16 A. This is the site of the mosque after the war. It is a photo I
17 have I believe from Xhavit Lokaj, and it looked the same when I visited
18 Mitrovica, but that wasn't until 2000.
19 Q. And how -- from whom did you obtain information at this site,
20 because we see there is nothing there at the site? There was the mosque
21 that we had seen in the earlier photograph.
22 A. When I went to the site, I was taken there by the imam of the
23 mosque and he explained that this is where the mosque was. As you say,
24 there isn't much one can tell. There are bits of rubble and the location
25 certainly fits the location where the mosque used to be with regard to
Page 7535
1 street address.
2 Q. Thank you.
3 MS. KRAVETZ: I seek to tender these two photographs as a
4 65 ter 01802.
5 JUDGE PARKER: They will be received.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01121.
7 MS. KRAVETZ: And if we could now move to 01780, please.
8 Q. This is an entry from your database.
9 A. Okay. I --
10 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could zoom in towards the bottom.
11 THE WITNESS: Okay. I would like to make two corrections to my
12 previous observation. It looks like the photo came from Mr. Bajgora, not
13 Xhavit Lokaj, and in fact my visit to Mitrovica was my second return
14 visit in March of 2001.
15 MS. KRAVETZ:
16 Q. And why is it that you did not visit this site during your first
17 trip in 1999?
18 A. As I believe I mentioned earlier this morning or maybe yesterday,
19 we were advised by the ICTY field office in Pristina that they had
20 received information from KFOR that there was going to be trouble in
21 Mitrovica the day we had planned to go to Mitrovica, and in fact that was
22 when the first riot, confrontation, took place at the bridge which is
23 right next to this mosque. So we were told it was inadvisable to go to
24 Mitrovica that day. In March of 2001, I had a commission from the UNMIK
25 department of culture to carry out an assessment of the public library in
Page 7536
1 Mitrovica, so I took that opportunity to visit the sites, although I had
2 photographs in hand already.
3 Q. And we see from the damage description that it says that the site
4 has been completely razed. That is consistent with your observation?
5 A. It certainly is.
6 Q. And the top part of this entry indicates that this site has been
7 graded as being "completely destroyed."
8 A. That's correct.
9 Q. Thank you. Now, under the "Damage" heading there's also a
10 sentence that refers to the date of when the damage to the mosque was
11 carried out, and this would have been --
12 A. The information from the Islamic Community.
13 Q. Of the town of Mitrovica
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Okay.
16 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender this exhibit.
17 It's 01780.
18 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
19 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be P01122.
20 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could now move to 01803.
21 Q. Do you recognise what is depicted in this photograph, sir?
22 A. Yes, it's the mosque in the village of Landovica
23 north of Prizren.
24 Q. And did you personally visit this site?
25 A. Yes.
Page 7537
1 Q. Could you just provide us with information as to your
2 observations that you --
3 A. The photograph was taken --
4 THE INTERPRETER: Would the speakers kindly not overlap for the
5 sake of the interpreters. Thank you.
6 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry. The photograph was taken from the main
7 highway itself, just from the verge of the highway, which is immediately
8 next to the mosque. The -- what you see in the picture is the part of
9 the minaret that has been toppled. I also took other pictures of the
10 mosque. The minaret is a modern minaret, and it came apart in pieces.
11 One of the pieces seems to have crashed into the dome which had a big
12 hole in it, and -- otherwise, the building looked intact except for the
13 windows being gone.
14 MS. KRAVETZ:
15 Q. Okay.
16 MS. KRAVETZ: I seek to tender this photograph, Your Honours.
17 It's 01803.
18 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
19 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01123.
20 THE INTERPRETER: Ms. Kravetz is kindly asked to speak up for the
21 sake of the interpreters. Thank you.
22 MS. KRAVETZ: Yes. My apologies for that.
23 If I could now have 01777 up on the screen.
24 Q. And this is, again, an entry from your database.
25 MS. KRAVETZ: And if we could scroll to the bottom part of this
Page 7538
1 document.
2 Q. And I would just like to ask you to comment on what we see in the
3 two photographs that are there.
4 A. On top you see a picture I took. You can see that the hole in
5 the dome has a temporary patch over it. The interior photo came from
6 Mr. Bajgora which shows the hole before it had been patched. You can see
7 the stump of the minaret right below the edge of the roof there, and the
8 damage to one of the small domes as well.
9 Q. And we see under "Surveyor" that the date given there is
10 October 1999. That would have been the date when you visited the site?
11 A. Correct.
12 Q. And we also see that the EU/IMG
13 2000. Would you also have relied on their information when preparing
14 this entry?
15 A. Certainly. It was simply additional corroboration from another
16 source.
17 Q. Thank you.
18 MS. KRAVETZ: I seek to tender this exhibit. It's 01777.
19 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
20 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01124.
21 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could now move to 01798, please.
22 Q. Do you recognise this photograph, sir?
23 A. Yes. It is the burned-out interior of the mosque at Vlastica.
24 Q. And was this a site you personally visited or not?
25 A. It was not.
Page 7539
1 MS. KRAVETZ: If I could tender this photograph, Your Honours, is
2 01798.
3 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
4 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01125.
5 MS. KRAVETZ: And if we could move to 01785.01, please.
6 Q. Now, we see this same photograph that has -- that we've just seen
7 earlier. If you can just comment on the damage, the information
8 contained there under the heading "Damage."
9 A. Yes. I had an exterior photo of the building where you cannot
10 see much evidence of damage, but the interior was clearly burned out.
11 There is also further information from the EU/IMG report which talks
12 about damage to the interior as well as a media account which is in the
13 same entry which also notes the damage to the interior of the mosque.
14 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could move to page 2 of this exhibit. And if
15 we could just zoom in the photograph we see there.
16 Q. Is this what you were referring to earlier when --
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. -- you were speaking about -- so would this have been the state
19 in August of 1999 when the photograph was taken?
20 A. Yes.
21 MS. KRAVETZ: I seek to tender this exhibit, Your Honour, into
22 evidence as 01785.01.
23 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
24 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01126.
25 MS. KRAVETZ: The next document is 01794, if we could have that
Page 7540
1 up on the screen.
2 Q. Do you recognise the structure that's depicted in this
3 photograph?
4 A. Yes. I believe it is -- okay, I believe it's -- this is a mosque
5 at Velika Krusa or Bela Crkva, I forget which. I don't have the --
6 Q. And this would not have been a site you visited?
7 A. It's not a site I visited. It's definitely in my database.
8 Q. Mm-hmm.
9 A. But without reference to it, I -- for the moment I'm having a
10 lapse as to which one of those it is. It's one of several villages in
11 that area just north of Prizren.
12 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could have up on the screen 01776.
13 Q. Which is an entry from your database.
14 THE INTERPRETER: Speakers are kindly asked not to overlap for
15 the sake of interpreters. Thank you.
16 MS. KRAVETZ: My apologies again.
17 Q. Sir, we're being reminded that we need to pause between question
18 and answer.
19 A. Okay. My second guess was correct, it is Velika Krusa. It is
20 again a picture of the mosque and of the site where the minaret was, the
21 big gap in the side of the building. And you can see a little bit of the
22 base of the minaret especially on the large photo. The second photo
23 shows the hole from the interior and there is extensive damage to the
24 interior of the building as well. The photos in this case came from
25 Mr. Bajgora, but once again there was independent confirmation from the
Page 7541
1 EU/IMG
2 Q. Thank you for that.
3 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender these two exhibits.
4 The one currently up on the screen is 01776, and I ask that that be
5 received.
6 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
7 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01127.
8 MS. KRAVETZ: The previous photograph was 01794, and I ask that
9 that be received.
10 JUDGE PARKER: It too will be received.
11 THE REGISTRAR: That will be Exhibit P01128, Your Honours.
12 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could now move to 01793, please.
13 Q. And do you recognise this photograph, sir?
14 A. Yes, I believe it is the mosque at Brestovac.
15 Q. Do you recall -- was this a site you visited or --
16 A. It was not a site we visited.
17 Q. And based on the -- on what we observe in the photograph, what
18 were your conclusions regarding the damage suffered?
19 A. Based on the photographs, first of all, the building is
20 completely gutted, it's burned out, and the top of the minaret is
21 missing. And I believe we classified it as "heavily damaged."
22 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender this exhibit.
23 It's 01793.
24 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
25 THE REGISTRAR: That will be Exhibit P01129, Your Honours.
Page 7542
1 MS. KRAVETZ: And if we could move to 01775, please.
2 Q. And I just have a brief question regarding this exhibit. This is
3 an entry from your database. We see that this entry relates to Brestovac
4 and we see the same photograph that you just commented on. Under the
5 heading "Damage" there's -- the second line says:
6 "According to Islamic Community, the mosque was destroyed on
7 March 25th, 1999
8 Was this information you personally obtained?
9 A. I obtained the information from the Islamic Community in
10 Orahovac, which is the centre for the area in which the village of
11 Brestovac is.
12 Q. So you did travel to the municipality but not to this specific --
13 A. Not to the village, no.
14 Q. Okay. Thank you for that. And we see again that this photograph
15 was provided by Mr. Sabri Bajgora. He's not a member of that
16 particular --
17 A. Well, he's a member of the -- all Kosovo Islamic Community.
18 Q. Thank you for that.
19 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender this exhibit.
20 It's 01775.
21 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
22 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01130.
23 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could now look at 01786, please.
24 Q. This is an entry from your database for the town of Kotlina
25 Could you explain why there is no photograph attached in this entry. Was
Page 7543
1 it because you were unable to obtain photographs or was there another
2 reason?
3 A. No, we did have a photograph from the EU/IMG database, but for
4 technical reasons I couldn't extract the photograph from the IMG database
5 and put it into my database. But I did provide the Tribunal with the IMG
6 database.
7 Q. So --
8 A. It's a very remote village, and it was not one we were able to
9 travel to.
10 Q. And so your assessment on the building condition -- oh, I see the
11 document, it's on the right of the screen. Your assessment regarding the
12 condition of the building was then made on the basis of that photograph
13 from the --
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. -- IMG
16 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender this entry.
17 It's 01786.
18 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
19 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01131.
20 MS. KRAVETZ: If we can now move to 05341. And, Your Honours,
21 these are the four photographs that we had spoken about earlier before
22 the witness came in.
23 Q. And these are photographs you brought with you when you came
24 earlier in the week. Do you recognise this photograph?
25 A. Yes. It is a photograph of the mosque in the village of Cirez
Page 7544
1 This particular photograph came from Human Rights Watch and was taken
2 immediately after the end of the war. Would you like me to comment on
3 what it shows?
4 Q. Yes, please.
5 A. It is a view from where the interior of the mosque used to be,
6 the main prayer hall, which is now completely destroyed. And you're
7 looking out through the front door. The three small domes were over the
8 entrance, and you can see that two of them are damaged. The arch in
9 front of you is all that remains of the main prayer hall.
10 Q. Thank you.
11 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could move to the next page of this exhibit.
12 Q. And if you could comment on these two photographs that are shown
13 here.
14 A. These are photographs of the same mosque taken in April of 1998
15 during the Muslim Bajram, the major feast. The photos were taken by the
16 local congregation, and they were obtained for me very recently by
17 Mr. Xhabir Hamiti, the -- who has now recently been elected the president
18 of the Assembly of the Islamic Community of Kosovo. He used to be the
19 secretary. The photograph is particularly useful because it shows the
20 entire mosque. And you can see the main prayer hall with a very large
21 dome and the three small domes over the entrance in that odd, slightly
22 staggered configuration.
23 Q. Thank you.
24 MS. KRAVETZ: If we can move to page 3 of the exhibit.
25 Q. And, again, I would ask for your comments on the next photograph.
Page 7545
1 A. This photograph also came from Mr. Xhabir Hamiti, and it shows
2 the mosque after the war. The photo is taken from the entrance facade.
3 You can see again the three small domes. And what you don't see is the
4 main prayer hall of the mosque which had disappeared.
5 MS. KRAVETZ: And if we could move to page 4, please.
6 THE WITNESS: This is a photograph from the UN Commission for
7 Human Rights. It was taken during a trip commissioned by UNHCR by the
8 Canadian photographer Roger Lemoyne, that's L-e-m-o-y-n-e, and it shows
9 the interior of the mosque in October of 1998 being used as shelter for
10 refugees at the end of the first summer of fighting. What it shows, of
11 course, is that as of then the main prayer hall was still intact.
12 MS. KRAVETZ:
13 Q. Thank you.
14 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender these four
15 photographs. I know there has been an objection raised by the Defence,
16 but I believe the witness has already explained the source of each one of
17 the photographs. It's 65 ter 05341.
18 JUDGE PARKER: It will be marked for identification.
19 Unless you have a change --
20 MR. DJORDJEVIC: It's fine, it's fine.
21 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01132 marked
22 for identification.
23 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could now have 01778 up on the screen.
24 Q. This is an entry from your database. I would just ask you to
25 comment on the section below "Building Condition" and "Damage."
Page 7546
1 A. These were the photos we had in hand at the time of our -- when
2 we prepared our report, and unfortunately they were not as easy to read
3 as the others before. But if you look at it very carefully you will see
4 that the top photo shows the mosque taken from the side to the right of
5 the entrance. You can see the -- at the right-hand side of the photo the
6 collapsed remnants of the main prayer hall. Then you can see the first
7 and a little bit of the second of the three domes taken from the side of
8 the three small domes of the entrance and the still-standing part of the
9 portico. And below is a photo taken from the entrance side showing the
10 mosque before the war.
11 Q. And is this the same mosque that we saw in the other
12 photographs --
13 A. It is indeed.
14 Q. -- that you just commented on. We see that you're not listed
15 under the heading "Surveyor," but did you have the opportunity to visit
16 this site during your trips to Kosovo?
17 A. We passed the mosque on the way back from a trip to western
18 Kosovo, but it was too dark to take a picture and I was hoping we would
19 get photos from elsewhere. But I did not list myself as a surveyor in
20 this case because we did not in fact stop to make a close inspection. It
21 was getting dark.
22 Q. Okay.
23 JUDGE PARKER: Perhaps you could help us a little. The lower of
24 the two photographs indicates a two-level, two-storey building, whereas
25 the other photograph seem to suggest only one level. Is that --
Page 7547
1 THE WITNESS: No, if you look at it, Your Honour, on the bottom
2 of the -- on the bottom photograph, the arcade has a side window which is
3 what you see there. The top level seems to have collapsed somehow. I
4 don't know -- if we went back to the other photos maybe we could get a
5 better sense of what is going on in the previous ones Ms. Kravetz showed.
6 MS. KRAVETZ: This is 65 ter 05341, which is the document that we
7 have just viewed and was marked for identification.
8 [Trial Chamber confers]
9 MS. KRAVETZ: And if we could see page 2, please.
10 Q. Is this the same building that we were just looking at in your
11 database entry?
12 A. I believe it is, and if you also get the next page which shows
13 the --
14 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could go to the next page, please.
15 THE WITNESS: -- destruction, you can see that the second level
16 has collapsed.
17 JUDGE PARKER: It's your understanding these photographs are of
18 the same building?
19 THE WITNESS: It is my understanding that they are all of the
20 same building.
21 JUDGE PARKER: There is some concern that the scale and structure
22 appear to differ in the photographs.
23 THE WITNESS: Well -- okay, again, I would draw Your Honours'
24 attention to the characteristic window on the right-hand side of the
25 arcade, and if we could go back to the pre-war photo.
Page 7548
1 MS. KRAVETZ: That is page 2 of the same exhibit.
2 THE WITNESS: Yes. Again, you see that same window opening
3 there --
4 MS. KRAVETZ:
5 Q. I don't know if you want to mark it just -- because we can't see
6 what you're pointing at.
7 A. I'm sorry. I'm looking at - is the pen activated?
8 [Trial Chamber confers]
9 THE WITNESS: All I can guess is that as the main prayer hall
10 collapsed, it -- the domes also collapsed onto the next level down. But
11 what I was trying to point out, and it's still not doing it.
12 MS. KRAVETZ:
13 Q. The pen doesn't seem to be functioning.
14 A. Can you see what I was trying to indicate there? Clearly there
15 was a tremendous blast that was able to destroy the entire rear part of
16 the building. You can see it from here. This is the side of the
17 building. If we can go to --
18 MS. KRAVETZ: The photograph we were looking at is at the top of
19 this page.
20 THE WITNESS: Yes. If you could just scroll up, please. Yes.
21 MS. KRAVETZ: Is the pen not functioning? No?
22 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
23 MS. KRAVETZ:
24 Q. Well, we can leave that, Mr. Riedlmayer.
25 A. But -- was I able to explain -- at the right-hand side of the
Page 7549
1 arcade from the interior you can see that the walls come up and there is
2 a very characteristic window there.
3 JUDGE PARKER: The difficulty we have is the apparent
4 disappearance of one whole level of the building with the domes
5 relatively intact.
6 THE WITNESS: Well, I -- Your Honours, if I can draw upon my
7 experience of looking at literally several hundred of such mosques that
8 were destroyed by explosions, these modern mosque structures are made of
9 elements of reinforced concrete. The little domes are constructed
10 separately and then placed on top. They are not an integral part of the
11 structure. In one case in Bosnia
12 up where the entire roof fell down on one side from two-storey height and
13 the domes were still intact and the only wall still standing was the back
14 of the mosque.
15 So it is quite possible to drop these domes one storey without
16 them disintegrating. There are only a few standard designs that these
17 villages use, and to some extent these are prefabricated mosques, the
18 arcades, and so forth. The main structure is just the same way that
19 local houses are built nowadays, which is a concrete framework filled in
20 with hollow brick.
21 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we maybe see page 1 again of this exhibit.
22 Q. And in your view this photograph would have been taken - because
23 we see the three domes are there - would have been taken from which
24 angle?
25 A. This would be taken from the former interior looking towards the
Page 7550
1 entrance. And you can see part of the base of the main dome folded down,
2 that semicircle. The main dome originally rested upon a square base, and
3 the square base has been blown out. And what remained of it has
4 essentially folded down. So what looks like a vertical element in this
5 picture was originally horizontal.
6 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender the database entry
7 that we saw earlier, this is 01778. I don't know if Your Honours have
8 further questions on this specific set of photographs.
9 JUDGE PARKER: I think as much as he can the witness has helped
10 us. There's clearly lingering questions which we will have to study.
11 This will be received, the database.
12 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01133.
13 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could look at a further photograph, this is
14 01801.
15 Q. And this is a photograph we just saw on the entry that we were
16 looking at earlier for this mosque. If you could assist and indicate
17 from which angle this photograph would have been taken. It's just an
18 enlarged version from the one contained in the database entry.
19 A. Again, my sense is that what we're looking at is the right-hand
20 side -- if you were facing the entry, this would be taken from the
21 right-hand side of the mosque. You see the collapsed main prayer hall at
22 the right, and you see the folded-down base of the dome, and then you see
23 the three domes collapsed onto the front structure there.
24 Q. Thank you.
25 MS. KRAVETZ: I would like to tender this photograph as 01801.
Page 7551
1 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.
2 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01134.
3 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could now move to 01787.
4 Q. And this is one of the last sites that I would like to ask your
5 comments on. This is again an entry from your database for the site of
6 Ivaja.
7 A. Unfortunately, it's not the original colour one, so it's less
8 readable, the photograph, but it's first of all not a site we visited;
9 however, we had photograph from Mr. Bajgora and there was also an entry
10 in the EU/IMG
11 completely burned out. Only the perimeter walls remain. And there
12 seemed to be large gaps in the wall, indicating that there were blown
13 away by projectiles.
14 In addition to the photos and the EU/IMG database, there was also
15 a first-hand media report by a foreign reporter who was present in Ivaja
16 which describes the damage to the mosque.
17 Q. Thank you for that.
18 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender this exhibit as
19 01787. We will search in our system to see if we have the colour copy,
20 in which case we may apply at a later stage to replace this version with
21 a colour copy just so we have a more readable version of the photograph.
22 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you. It will be received.
23 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01135.
24 MS. KRAVETZ: The last set of photographs I want to look at is
25 01789.01 and if we could look at page 7 of that exhibit.
Page 7552
1 Q. Do you recognise this photograph, sir?
2 A. Yes. It is the interior of the Bayrakli mosque, or Mosque of
3 Sultan Muhammad the Conquerer, in the centre of the city of Pec. Do you
4 wish me to comment on it?
5 Q. Yes, please, sir.
6 A. You're standing in the interior looking out through the entrance
7 door on the left. What you're looking at is the remains of the women's
8 balcony which was over the entrance. The wooden elements of the balcony
9 have been completely burned, and there was intense heat inside the
10 mosque. You can see at the ground level everything is charred. The
11 marble columns have exploded from the heat.
12 If you -- marble often has residual water in it, fossil water,
13 and when exposed to very high heat, two things happen to marble: First
14 of all the water expands and explodes, that you can see in the middle
15 column, for example. And the other thing that can happen is, if the heat
16 is high enough, marble is metamorphic limestone, and when you burn
17 limestone you get cement. And the surface of these columns and of the
18 marble cladding at the lower level of the mosque had been exposed to high
19 enough heat that to a certain depth it had turned into powdery limestone.
20 What was remarkable is that at higher levels of the mosque, the
21 wall paintings were still intact, the roof, the walls were completely
22 intact. And in fact, the large oaken entrance door was charred but still
23 intact.
24 Q. Was this a site you visited?
25 A. This was a site we visited.
Page 7553
1 Q. Could we go to --
2 A. -- in October 1998.
3 Q. Could we go to -- October 1998? Is that the correct --
4 A. I'm sorry, October 1999. My mistake.
5 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could go to page 8, which is the next page.
6 Q. Do you recognise this photograph?
7 A. Yes. It is a mosque also in the city of Pec known in Albanian as
8 Xhamia e Kuqe, that's K-u-q-e, or red mosque. It was one of several
9 mosques in the city of Pec
10 from this photo which I took is, first of all, that the roof is missing,
11 that there has been intense fire. And you can also tell that this is a
12 mosque that has been set on fire from the inside and then burned because
13 the entire floor of it is carpeted with an even, undisturbed carpet of
14 roof tiles, broken only by the straight lines of the collapsed charred
15 roof timbers. If it had been hit by any kind of projectile, you would
16 have expected some disturbance, destruction of the roof or destruction of
17 the walls.
18 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we now look at the next page of this exhibit.
19 This is the last photograph I want to show you today.
20 Q. Do you recognise this photograph?
21 A. Yes. This is a photo taken in the city of Pristina next to the
22 Emperor's mosque in Pristina. What it shows is the historical archive of
23 the Islamic Community of Kosovo on fire. The photo was taken on
24 13th June, 1999
25 bought the photo from the news agency.
Page 7554
1 During our visit to Pristina in October of 1999, we visited the
2 burned-out building and made an inspection of it. The building contained
3 the historical archives of the Islamic Community, including the records
4 of its properties and charitable endowments as well as several safes that
5 had been broken open which, according to the Islamic Community spokesman
6 we talked to, actually, Mr. Xhabir Hamiti, had contained the collections
7 of charity money for the Bajram, for the major Muslim holiday. And
8 according to Mr. Hamiti and of course also according to media reports
9 that were published at the time it was burnt, the archive was burnt by
10 Serb policemen just before the arrival of the first KFOR troops.
11 Q. And how do you know that? Where did you obtain this information
12 that the archive had been burned by Serb policemen before the arrival of
13 the first KFOR troops?
14 A. Well, the two sources were, number one, the secretary of the
15 Islamic Community said as much; and number two, there were several news
16 reports by reporters who were present in Pristina at the time who gave
17 the same account.
18 Q. Thank you for that.
19 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honour, I seek to tender this exhibit into
20 evidence. There is -- this is a -- contains additional photographs which
21 I haven't shown to the witness; however, they are -- they have been
22 discussed in his previous testimony which is in evidence, and for
23 reference this exhibit in the Milutinovic case was D1789. So I would
24 seek to tender the entire set of photographs, although I have in the
25 interests of saving time not gone through each one of them. And in this
Page 7555
1 case this is 65 ter 01789.01.
2 JUDGE PARKER: They will be received.
3 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01136.
4 MS. KRAVETZ: And one final exhibit is 01791.01, if we could have
5 that up on the screen.
6 While that is being brought up, I was just informed by
7 Ms. Pedersen that we do have a colour copy of Exhibit P1135, this is
8 65 ter 01787, which is -- relates to the mosque in Ivaja that we just saw
9 five minutes ago. So I would ask with your leave to replace the version
10 in e-court with a colour copy just because the quality of the photograph
11 is better.
12 JUDGE PARKER: Leave is granted.
13 MS. KRAVETZ: Thank you.
14 Q. Sir, this is the final exhibit I would like to show you if you
15 could just explain what this is.
16 A. This is an entry from the EU/IMG database. If you scroll up
17 slightly -- I guess it doesn't have their letter-head above, it may have
18 it below -- oh, yes, International Management Group, and they give the
19 date when they did their assessment, in this case at the beginning of
20 October of 1999. Each entry contains a photograph. It has the
21 dimensions of the building and other technical data, and then in this
22 case the damage valuation for the mosque itself is "totally destroyed,"
23 so they give no details. But you will note the various categories where
24 they mention that it has no telephone link, no power-supply, and so
25 forth.
Page 7556
1 You can see a slightly better example down below for what they
2 call building number 2 of the complex, which I assume must be the imam's
3 house. Their damage categories are, walls and floors, roof, doors, and
4 windows, interiors, and it seems to be a very complex calculus because
5 the total has to be -- add up to 100, so in this case 7 per cent of the
6 interior doesn't mean that it's -- 7 per cent of the interior got burned,
7 but whatever the standard percentage is for the interior, it is that
8 portion of it.
9 You will also note that in categories where the mosque was not
10 totally destroyed they would use the same assessment scale for a mosque,
11 which makes it rather difficult to talk about a building, for example,
12 which has lost the minaret. Where would you classify the minaret in
13 those categories? So it has somewhat limited applicability.
14 And I also noticed that if you go through all of the EU/IMG
15 database there seem to have been slightly different readings of the
16 categorisation in different municipalities, where in one municipality a
17 building that was completely burned out and was missing its roof would be
18 assigned a lower number than damage that looked almost identical in
19 another municipality. Of course, it's sometimes very hard to tell.
20 Q. And would this be the type of entry that you looked at when you
21 were preparing your report --
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. -- and that you have cited in your own entries of your database?
24 A. Right. So in these EU/IMG
25 for us was the photograph and the assessment was largely based on the
Page 7557
1 photograph to the extent that we looked at their damage evaluation; there
2 was some indication, as you saw in the case of Lastica, of interior or
3 exterior damage.
4 Q. Thank you for that explanation.
5 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender exhibit into
6 evidence.
7 JUDGE PARKER: Yes.
8 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P01137.
9 MS. KRAVETZ:
10 Q. Thank you for your answers, Mr. Riedlmayer.
11 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, at this stage I have no further
12 questions for the witness.
13 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you very much.
14 Yes, Mr. Djordjevic.
15 MR. DJORDJEVIC: I just need some time to prepare.
16 Cross-examination by Mr. Djordjevic:
17 Q. [Interpretation] Good day, Mr. Riedlmayer. My name is
18 Dragoljub Djordjevic, counsel for the accused, Vlastimir Djordjevic.
19 Given the delicacy of your work, I feel it incumbent upon me to ask you
20 questions that I hope will provide us with a greater insight on what you
21 discussed today and on matters contained in your report to this Tribunal.
22 Pursuant to that, first of all, I will have to ask you about your
23 expertise. What is your academic title, please?
24 A. Okay. I have a bachelor's degree in history, I have a master's
25 degree in Near Eastern Studies, I have a degree in library and
Page 7558
1 information science, and I'm a doctoral candidate.
2 Q. Thank you. Could you please be so kind to tell us this. You
3 said that you have a degree in history. Could you please tell me whether
4 this degree concerns a certain period in history or is it a general
5 history degree.
6 A. My specialty was in Ottoman history, with a minor in Byzantine
7 studies.
8 Q. Please tell us, where did you obtain this degree while you
9 studied, which is -- that which is related to your specialty, the Ottoman
10 history, that is in other words a part of the history of Turkey; am I
11 right in saying so?
12 A. To answer the first part of your question, I obtained my training
13 in Ottoman history at the University of Chicago
14 Princeton University
15 not just part of the history of Turkey
16 would be nearly the history of Austria
17 of the Balkans and of the broader region that was part of the
18 Ottoman Empire.
19 Q. I focused only on the Ottoman history that you say you
20 specialised in and that you are an expert in. I did not ask you anything
21 about Habsburgs, I did not want to hear any comment about them, but
22 anyway thank you. You said that you had a minor concerning Byzantine
23 culture. What does it relate to, where did you obtain this degree, and
24 could you be more specific in terms of what you graduated from in terms
25 of Byzantine history?
Page 7559
1 A. Okay. In the American educational system you get a -- in your
2 bachelor's degree you get to choose a major and a minor field in which
3 you take your examinations and your courses. I studied Byzantine history
4 at the University of Chicago
5 with Professor Walter Kaegi, I took several courses in the history and
6 culture of the Byzantine Empire. It seemed to be a useful supplement to
7 the Ottoman history which, after all, temporally and in terms of
8 geographic area, followed it. And it was also something that fit into my
9 prior education since I had pursued a classical course in my
10 pre-university education, so I had Latin and Greek.
11 Q. At any rate, it fits part of your statement where you say that
12 the Balkans has been a focus of your interest for the past 40 years or
13 even more because that statement dates back a certain number of years.
14 Would we agree on that, that this is the focus of your interest, the
15 history of the Balkans as a whole?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Thank you. You said history. Now you've cleared it up. And
18 then you mentioned Near East studies. How complementary that is for your
19 degree in history. What about the other field, this other degree
20 concerning Near Eastern Studies, what does it stand for? Of course in
21 the context of the US
22 that in replying to my question, please.
23 A. Glad to. At Princeton University
24 training, Ottoman history was part of the Department of Near Eastern
25 Studies. Rather than be part of the History department. Within
Page 7560
1 the Department of Near Eastern Studies, we were required to take courses
2 not only in history as such but also in philology and in cultural
3 history. So at Princeton
4 well as Ottoman historical sources and their readings and
5 interpretations. That it was called Near Eastern Studies was merely the
6 administrative arrangement at that particular university.
7 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Djordjevic, I must, I'm afraid, interrupt, as
8 I indicated yesterday and have reminded counsel. We must break early and
9 at this time because of another commitment that I have, and we must have
10 a longer-than-usual break.
11 I'm sorry about this, sir, but there are other pressing matters.
12 We expect to be able to resume in 40 minutes' time, at ten minutes to
13 1.00. Again, a Court Officer will assist you.
14 MR. DJORDJEVIC: Very well, Your Honours.
15 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.
16 --- Recess taken at 12.09 p.m.
17 [The witness stands down]
18 --- On resuming at 1.05 p.m.
19 JUDGE PARKER: I apologise, I was delayed longer than expected.
20 [The witness takes the stand]
21 JUDGE PARKER: Yes, Mr. Djordjevic.
22 MR. DJORDJEVIC: Thank you, Your Honours.
23 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Riedlmayer, we are going to continue where
24 we stopped before the break. You were explaining what Near Eastern
25 Studies meant at Princeton University
Page 7561
1 part of your answer. Your library sciences training and education, when,
2 where, and what does this mean, please?
3 A. I did my degree in -- another master's degree in library and
4 information science at the Graduate School
5 Science in Simmons College
6 although I had been pursuing it since the early 1980s. This is with a
7 view to specialisation in art documentation, which concerns the
8 documentation of works of art and the systemisation of the information
9 about works of art.
10 Since 1985 I have directed the Document Centre for Islamic Art
11 and Architecture at Harvard and as part of that position I've also
12 pursued continuing education in taking courses on artistry and also
13 attending conferences on art documentation. I don't know if that answers
14 your question, art history.
15 Q. Thank you. What I'm interested in is whether your work in this
16 field was directed not only at culture of the Islamic Community, but
17 whether your interests went beyond culture and art or were you just
18 limited to Islamic culture and tradition which is connected to culture
19 and arts?
20 A. Okay. The answer to your question is, first of all, the work
21 I've done concerns every culture that had contact with Islamic culture.
22 So it includes not only the cultural production of Islamic communities,
23 but also the cultural production of communities that were in contact with
24 Islam.
25 Secondly, as the director of an art documentation centre, in
Page 7562
1 addition to dealing with works of art as such, I also have an interest in
2 related fields such as art law which deals with the regulation of the
3 trade in art and artefacts. And in the late 1980s and early 1990s I
4 developed a project to work up a source book on the legal protection of
5 cultural property with a special focus on the Middle East. This was an
6 outgrowth of the First Gulf War. And I even had a publisher who -- that
7 was interested, but then events overtook that and that project never came
8 to fruition.
9 Q. Thank you. Please tell me, do you still work as a bibliographer
10 within the Aga Khan Program on Islamic culture at the
11 Harvard University
12 A. Yes, that is my official title.
13 Q. Would you please be so kind as to explain briefly what stands
14 behind the Aga Khan Program, who founded it, how it is funded, and what
15 does its existence mean within the context of the Harvard University
16 This would be my first question but contains a number of subordinate
17 questions. I believe you'll be able to manage it.
18 A. I'll do my best. First of all, the Aga Khan Program for Islamic
19 architecture was set up in 1979 as a joint programme between
20 Harvard University
21 was established by a donation from His Highness Karim Aga Khan.
22 Karim Aga Khan is one of the many wealthy graduates of
23 Harvard University
24 since he got his degree, like many Harvard graduates, he was persuaded to
25 give a donation to the university. In his case he established a chair in
Page 7563
1 Islamic art history and the documentation centre was part of the donation
2 for the chair. The way such things work at American universities is once
3 an endowment is made the university manages the endowment and the income
4 of the endowment supports the activities of the endowment. So in this
5 case the activities support the Aga Khan professor at various
6 conferences, the activities of the documentation centre, fellowships and
7 scholarships for students and visiting scholars, and so forth.
8 The Aga Khan, as you may know, is the head of the
9 Ismaili Shia Community which is a sect of Islam and he has both inherited
10 wealth and wealth that comes to him through donations of his community,
11 while he takes an active interest in various cultural enterprises of his
12 own through the Aga Khan Foundation, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture,
13 and other enterprises.
14 The programme at Harvard subsists independently for the past 25
15 years as part of Harvard University
16 the programme.
17 Q. Thank you. This was an exhaustive answer, and I hope that we
18 will draw many conclusions from it. The next thing I'm interested in is
19 as follows. The programme and the main objectives of the
20 Aga Khan Foundation or endowment of the library which contains many
21 documents headed by you as far as I could gather, what are those main
22 objectives of the Aga Khan endowment and this library and programme?
23 A. The main objectives are to support research and teaching in the
24 fields of Islamic architecture, Islamic art history, and archaeology. We
25 support both the faculty and the students as well as researchers who come
Page 7564
1 to us from every part of the world. And we also have publications that
2 we issue. Does that answer your question?
3 Q. Yes.
4 MR. DJORDJEVIC: [Interpretation] Question to the interpreters:
5 Do you want me to switch off my mike?
6 I would like to ask the Court for this question to me from the
7 interpreters to be sorted out through their technicians because this is
8 going to be very vexing for me to switch on and switch off my microphone.
9 There was no noise ensuing from that, and this will disturb me if I have
10 to switch it on and off during my cross-examination.
11 JUDGE PARKER: Normal
12 Mr. Djordjevic, is to switch on and off. So we would ask you to follow
13 that practice. Thank you.
14 MR. DJORDJEVIC: [Interpretation] Very well, Your Honours. I have
15 not been doing so for the past six months. I will try to do so, but I
16 have to admit that this affects my concentration.
17 Q. Well, my next question concerning the Aga Khan Program - and this
18 is going to be the last one concerning the Aga Khan Program - is as
19 follows: You said that Karim Aga Khan is the head of an important
20 significant Shia religious community of the Muslims. Does this mean that
21 the Aga Khan Program deals with the culture of other Muslim communities,
22 Sunni Muslims and others? Or is it focused strictly to the Shia Muslim
23 community. As far as I recall you referred to that community.
24 A. No, it is not a sectarian programme. It is an academic programme
25 that looks at Islamic culture in the broadest sense, including, as I
Page 7565
1 mentioned before, the interactions between Islamic culture and non-Muslim
2 cultures. What it does focus on is the visual aspects of this culture,
3 so the visual arts, architecture, arts of the book.
4 Q. I understand what you're saying, but in any case I did not want
5 to use this word "sectarian" or a "sect" when referring to Shia Muslims.
6 This is a significant traditional community. Maybe you've misunderstood
7 my drift. I will have no further questions concerning this.
8 My next topic is your associate, the architect, Herscher. Would
9 you please tell us what you know about his academic background -- sorry,
10 I apologise. First of all, you said that you are preparing your doctoral
11 thesis. Let's wrap-up this thing. Could you please tell us the title
12 and the subject matter of your doctoral thesis and at which university.
13 A. Okay. I did not say I'm preparing my doctoral thesis. I said I
14 was admitted to candidacy. That was at Princeton University
15 did some thesis research and then decided not to pursue a thesis. So I
16 remain a candidate, as having passed by exams, but I decided not to
17 pursue that career.
18 Now, can we go on to Mr. Herscher or would you like to ask other
19 questions?
20 Q. No. This is sufficient. Now let's please address the question
21 about Mr. Herscher that I put to you a minute ago.
22 A. Okay. Andrew Herscher, who prepared this report along with me,
23 is a trained architect. And at the time I got to know him he was in the
24 final stages of his doctoral work in architectural history, theory, and
25 criticism at Harvard University
Page 7566
1 worked on Slovenian architecture. He also had some involvement in the
2 post-war conservation of architecture in Mostar, in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
3 And most importantly for -- aside from his architectural qualifications,
4 he also had some acquaintance with the languages and cultures of the
5 region.
6 After we finished our survey work, Mr. Herscher went on to work
7 for the culture sector of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, first as
8 assistant head of the department of culture and then eventually as the
9 head of the department of culture within UNMIK. He completed his
10 doctorate in 2002 and he currently teaches as a professor of architecture
11 at the University of Michigan
12 Q. Thank you. Let's revisit line 4, page 40 [as interpreted]. It
13 says here:
14 [In English] "... worked on Slovenian architecture."
15 [Interpretation] I believe that this is an honest mistake. It is
16 supposed to be Slavic architecture, not Slovenian?
17 THE WITNESS: No.
18 MR. DJORDJEVIC: Is it Slovenian --
19 THE WITNESS: He did his work on a Slovenian architect,
20 whose name escapes me at the moment, a very famous man who designed the
21 National Library in Ljubljana
22 do with Czech architecture.
23 Q. [Interpretation] Thank you. This is clearer now. Could you
24 please expound on him knowing the Balkan languages. Could you please
25 shed some more light on that.
Page 7567
1 A. Well, his linguistic expertise, such as it was, was due to the
2 fact that he had studied and worked in Prague, so he was -- had some
3 fluency in Czech.
4 And he had spent some time in Bosnia
5 some Serbo-Croatian. What this meant for our practical purposes is that
6 he had enough knowledge of Serbo-Croatian that he could read some of the
7 published documentation that came from the former Yugoslavia.
8 Q. Thank you. With respect to what you worked on, did you study art
9 history?
10 A. Okay. My degree is not in art history, but I have taken many
11 courses in art history, both in my undergraduate career and in my
12 continuing education in the 25 years that I've worked at Harvard.
13 Q. My next question is this: During your studies, did you have any
14 contact with technical sciences, with civil engineering and architecture?
15 A. No, sir, I'm not an engineer and I'm not an architect. The fact
16 that Mr. Herscher came with me was thereby an enhancement to our team
17 because he brought an expertise that I could not claim.
18 Q. I'm aware that you are not an architect or a civil engineer. All
19 I wanted to know is if there were any subjects or courses during
20 university that had some points in common with these two subjects, but
21 anyway.
22 My next question is: If before 1999 you worked on a similar
23 project, photographing the damage of cultural monuments in any country in
24 the similar way that you worked in the territory of Kosovo
25 A. I have experience in photo documentation of architecture, both in
Page 7568
1 carrying it out first-hand and in analysing it and using it to put
2 together databases, but certainly nothing comparable to the field-work I
3 did in Kosovo in the sense that none of these projects concerned a
4 post-war situation as such. But yes, I have gone on photo-documentation
5 expeditions and also evaluated the work of others who have done so.
6 Q. Thank you. Can you please tell us if you worked on similar jobs
7 in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina?
8 A. Before the war or after the war?
9 Q. Either one.
10 A. Okay. I did carry out a survey in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the
11 summer of 2001 under the auspices of the Tribunal, on a contract from the
12 Tribunal.
13 Q. Can you just --
14 A. Sorry, 2002.
15 Q. -- tell me briefly -- can you just, please, tell me briefly what
16 was the nature of this contract and exactly what did you do for the
17 Tribunal?
18 A. I was given terms of reference to look into documenting the
19 wartime damage to the cultural and religious heritage of the non-Serb
20 communities in a number of Bosnian municipalities. The methodology I
21 pursued was very similar to that of the Kosovo survey, except that it was
22 not extended over the entire territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina but was
23 limited -- more limited in scope. And also, unlike in the case of Kosovo
24 where I documented every community in Bosnia-Herzegovina, it was limited
25 to the non-Serb communities.
Page 7569
1 Q. So you would agree with me if we were to note that the Serbian
2 community was not part of your work in the project that you did in
3 Bosnia and Herzegovina?
4 A. I think that's correct. The terms of reference for my mission, I
5 believe mainly for reasons of economy, concentrated on the matters which
6 had been charged in the indictment which this was supposed to assist the
7 Court in dealing with.
8 Q. I apologise, you've confused me a little bit now. What I
9 understood was that you were assessing the damage of the cultural
10 monuments of the non-Serb community in Yugoslavia without assessing the
11 financial amount of the damage and the actual damage overall which was
12 important. But can you please tell us what the main objective was, the
13 assessment of cultural monuments, the extent of the damage, or did it
14 have more to do with the economic aspect of your expert mission?
15 A. Unlike the EU/IMG
16 base-line of how much money would be needed to reconstruct the buildings.
17 The survey that Mr. Herscher and I carried out in Kosovo and my
18 subsequent surveys in Bosnia
19 damage. The categorisation of the buildings as to age and whether they
20 had been listed monuments protected under law before the war served,
21 especially in the case of Kosovo, for the purpose of establishing
22 priorities for reconstruction. But we did not propose to do economic
23 estimates.
24 Q. Thank you. Now we have clarified this matter as well. In your
25 CV you refer, amongst other things - I'm talking about the latest updated
Page 7570
1 CV from 2001 - that you were --
2 [In English] Department of culture United Nations Mission in
3 Kosovo, UNMIK, conducting an assessment of the states of books in Serbian
4 and other languages in the Mitrovica library.
5 Can you explain to us your function during that period?
6 A. Okay. This occurred in April of 2001, I believe. I was already
7 in Kosovo on my last return mission as part of our three-part survey.
8 And while I was in Kosovo I was asked by the department of culture,
9 without any remuneration, to carry out an assessment of books in the
10 Mitrovica public library. There had been allegations made that Serbian
11 books, books in the Serbian language, in the Mitrovica public library had
12 been discarded or destroyed. And so I carried out the survey in
13 conjunction with a member of the department of culture,
14 Madam Sophie Massal, and spent a day assessing the contents of the
15 library.
16 We measured the shelf metres of books according to language, we
17 looked at the condition of the books, and we came up with some
18 conclusions. The report is available on various web sites, including
19 that of UNESCO and of the International Federation of
20 Library Associations.
21 Q. [Interpretation] Thank you. Can you please tell me whether the
22 library is in the part of Kosovska Mitrovica on this part of the
23 Ibar River
24 Mitrovica as they used to refer to it. Am I correct?
25 A. No, the library in question is on the south side of the
Page 7571
1 Ibar River
2 It's just south of the river. And after June of 1999, the Serbian
3 director and staff departed to the north side of Mitrovica and eventually
4 the Albanian municipality appointed a new director on the south side.
5 Q. Thank you. My next question is already on the next item on your
6 CV where it says that from 1999 until 2006 you were the co-founder --
7 [In English] " ...of Kosovo Cultural Heritage Project and NGO
8 formed to help restore cultural monuments in Kosovo damaged in the 1998
9 till 1999 war."
10 Can you tell us about that time. What is your function and what
11 was the problems that you deal with?
12 A. When we originally conceived of the survey project, the project
13 had to have a name. We called it the Kosovo Cultural Heritage Project.
14 I will note that this was an independent undertaking between Mr. Herscher
15 and myself, and we got our funding from outside the university. We did
16 the survey in part to see what cultural heritage had been damaged and to
17 help the new UN authorities to deal with means of mitigating that damage.
18 Unfortunately, when the UN administration came in in Kosovo it
19 was not well prepared. The United Nations had never had a civil
20 administration mission before, and it took them almost a year to set up a
21 department of culture. Meanwhile, Mr. Herscher and I were very concerned
22 that nothing was being done to protect and to repair some of the
23 important war-damaged monuments. So we went back to the
24 Packard Foundation for a subvention for another donation to help repair
25 war-damaged monuments.
Page 7572
1 Q. Regarding the Packard Foundation, we will deal with that a little
2 later. Perhaps we can just stop here for now and stay on this project.
3 From what we see here, we see that it was focused on providing
4 assistance for the restoration of cultural monuments in Kosovo which were
5 damaged in the 1998/1999 war. What I'm interested in is, as the
6 co-founder and director of this project, did you actually manage to
7 provide real, effective help and was there any restoration done when you
8 were director and co-founder? Because I see that the project continues
9 until 2006. Did you manage to secure any funds? What was restored of
10 the cultural heritage and the monuments in Kosovo in that period? Who
11 provided the funds? And so on. That would be the gist of my question.
12 A. All right. The short answer is: Yes. We did manage to do some
13 hands-on projects. The first subvention came already in
14 December of 1999. We got a small $10.000 donation from the
15 Packard Foundation, roughly $10.000, to buy emergency plastic sheeting to
16 put on damaged monuments so that they would survive the first winter of
17 the war. The problem is when a building has been burnt out and the
18 elements enter into it, the rubble gets saturated with water. It freezes
19 and expands and causes further damage to the building. So UNHCR would
20 not provide the plastic. We provided the plastic and gave it to the
21 Institute for the Protection of Monuments in Kosovo which then
22 distributed to a variety of sites. That was step one.
23 Step two we proposed to the Packard Foundation, the same funding
24 agency, an ambitions project of doing a group of monuments. We would do
25 one damaged mosque, one damaged church, and at least one damaged work of
Page 7573
1 civil architecture. The mosque project actually came to fruition, that
2 was the Hadum mosque in Gjakova, and Packard funded the first stage of
3 that conservation. It is now being continued under UNESCO.
4 The negotiations over a church we had proposed, the church in
5 Drsnik [Realtime transcript read in error "Rznic"], eventually broke down
6 in our contacts with the Serbian Orthodox church authorities. They
7 insisted that such work had to be done through the preservation
8 authorities in Belgrade
9 eventually there was no way of arriving at any solution.
10 Eventually we found a partnership with the Swedish NGO, cultural
11 heritage without borders, who used some of our funding for the civil
12 architecture part. This included both some "kullas," traditional
13 Albanian houses, in a number of places and also a "konak" in Velika Hoca.
14 This was a residential building owned by the Serbian Orthodox Church.
15 The church restorations, unfortunately, did not materialise.
16 Q. Since there will probably be another trial continuing this
17 afternoon, I'm going to put one more question and then we will continue
18 tomorrow. I'm not clear which church you're talking about. The one in
19 Rznic or I heard something else. Perhaps you corrected yourself, let's
20 just clarify that point.
21 A. The church we had in mind was Drsnik, D-r-s-n-i-k.
22 Q. Thank you. We will continue tomorrow.
23 MR. DJORDJEVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, if you agree, I
24 think that this is a convenient moment for us to stop for today.
25 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you, Mr. Djordjevic.
Page 7574
1 I'm afraid our time has run again. We must continue tomorrow at
2 9.00. So a Court Officer will assist you when we leave the bench,
3 Mr. Riedlmayer, and we look forward to completing your evidence tomorrow.
4 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
5 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.47 p.m.
6 to be reconvened on Friday, the 17th day of
7 July, 2009, at 9.00 a.m.
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