Page 560
1 Monday, 3 December 2001
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 2.20 p.m.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Could the registrar please call the case.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Case number IT-98-29-T, the Prosecutor versus
7 Stanislav Galic.
8 JUDGE ORIE: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. May I please
9 have the appearances for the Prosecution.
10 MR. IERACE: Good afternoon, Mr. President and Your Honours. My
11 name is Mark Ierace. I appear with other members of the trial team,
12 Michael Blaxill, Morris Anyah, Monika Kalra, and my case manager, Edel
13 Guzman.
14 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Ierace.
15 Could I please have the appearances for the Defence.
16 MS. PILIPOVIC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honour. The
17 Defence of General Galic is represented today by attorney Mara Pilipovic
18 and my colleague, Stephane Piletta-Zanin. Thank you.
19 JUDGE ORIE: General Galic, can you hear the proceedings in a
20 language that you understand?
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour, I can, in a
22 language I understand.
23 JUDGE ORIE: I will not ask you this question every day, but as
24 soon as there's a problem as far as the translation is concerned, please
25 do not hesitate to let us know immediately.
Page 561
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.
2 JUDGE ORIE: Could I ask you about -- please sit down, General
3 Galic. Before we start the case, I just wondered whether you have any
4 health problems at this moment or that you are in good health. You may
5 remain seated. You don't have to stand up all the time, although it's up
6 to you.
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you for asking, Your Honour.
8 I do have some health problems. I was hoping that they would be treated
9 by the beginning of trial, but they haven't. But I do hope that I will be
10 able to follow the proceedings, though these are problems that are
11 worrying me. I have some problems with my spine and leg.
12 JUDGE ORIE: Perhaps if you say to us now that you can follow the
13 proceedings for today, we'll pay later on attention to your health in more
14 detail. That's all right?
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you very much. Yes, indeed, I
16 can follow the proceedings today, and the days to come, should there be
17 any problems, I will let you know on time. Thank you.
18 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you very much, General Galic.
19 By order of the President of the Tribunal dated the 30th of
20 November, this Trial Chamber is composed of three Judges. Sitting on my
21 right-hand side is the Honourable Judge Amin El Mahdi, sitting on my
22 left-hand side is the Honourable Judge Rafael Nieto-Navio. My name is
23 Judge Alphons Orie and the Presiding Judge in this case.
24 The Trial Chamber would like to thank the Pre-Trial Judge
25 Rodrigues for his contribution to the administration of this case. As I
Page 562
1 understand, we'll be sitting in this courtroom from a quarter past 2.00 in
2 the afternoon until 7.00 throughout this week. Next week, due to
3 constraints arising from other proceedings before the Tribunal, we'll be
4 sitting on Monday only, in the morning, from 9.00 until a quarter to
5 2.00. I thank the Registry in advance for informing the parties and
6 obviously the Judges of any change in venue or time as soon as
7 practicable.
8 Mr. Ierace, is the Prosecution ready to proceed with the opening
9 statement, in accordance with Rule 84?
10 MR. IERACE: It is, Your Honour.
11 JUDGE ORIE: And could you please inform us about your timing of
12 your opening statement so that we can organise the breaks as appropriate.
13 MR. IERACE: Yes, Your Honour. As best as I can anticipate, it
14 will take approximately an hour and a half.
15 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you. You may proceed, Mr. Ierace.
16 MR. IERACE: Thank you.
17 [Prosecution Opening Statement]
18 The siege of Sarajevo, as it came to be popularly known, was an
19 episode of such notoriety in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia
20 one must go back to World War II to find a parallel in European history.
21 Not since then had a professional army conducted a campaign of unrelenting
22 violence against the inhabitants of a European city so as to reduce them
23 to a state of medieval deprivation in which they were in constant fear of
24 death. In the period covered in this indictment, there was nowhere safe
25 for a Sarajevan, not at home, at school, in a hospital, from deliberate
Page 563
1 attack.
2 Why did it happen? Sarajevo, a city of half a million people, was
3 the capital of the socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
4 unit of the former Yugoslavia. Its main ethnic composition was
5 approximately 44 per cent Bosniak, and by that term I mean Bosnians of the
6 Muslim community; 31 per cent Serb, and 17 per cent Croat. In 1991, first
7 Slovenia, then Croatia
8 ethnic conflict. As Yugoslavia disintegrated the government determined to
9 follow the lead of Slovenia and Croatia in declaring independence and in
10 March 1992 declared itself to be the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
11 Sarajevo was a thriving multi-ethnic community, proud of a rich
12 cultural heritage and its international status as the 1984 Winter
13 Olympic city. Many remained convinced that their city was too urban,
14 sophisticated and contentedly multi-ethnic to suffer such a fate.
15 The end of peace came in early April 1992. Sarajevans had
16 observed forces of the Yugoslav People's Army, or JNA, conducting
17 exercises around Sarajevo, and when on 6 April the European community
18 recognised the Republic, hostilities began.
19 The following day Bosnian Serbs declared themselves to be the
20 Serbian Republic
21 as the Republika Srpska in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and claimed the majority of
22 the territory of the Republic. I will hereafter refer to it as the
23 Republika Srpska.
24 The objective of the Republika Srpska in relation to Sarajevo
25 clear by May 1992. On the 12th of May, its National Assembly stated their
Page 564
1 strategic objective to be the "partition of the city of Sarajevo
2 Serbian and Muslim parts." The same day, the assembly voted to create the
3 Army of the Republika Srpska, or Vojska Republika Srpska, known as the
4 VRS, effectively transforming remaining JNA units and other forces loyal
5 to the Republika Srpska into commands of the new VRS. The particular VRS
6 corps which was deployed in the Sarajevan theatre was the Sarajevsko
7 Romanijski Korpus or Sarajevo Romanija Corps, known as the SRK.
8 The army of the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina
9 Armija Bosna i Herzegovina, known as the ABiH.
10 So the two principle protagonists were the government of Bosnia
11 and Herzegovina and the break-away Republika Srpska, operating through
12 their respective armies; the ABiH and the SRK.
13 Over the next three and a half years, the people of Sarajevo
14 descended into what some observers described at the time as a medieval
15 hell. The two armies fought to a position of stalemate, the confrontation
16 lines became static, and reflecting the protracted strangle hold of the
17 SRK, the battle became known as the siege of Sarajevo
18 about because, although the ABiH had approximately 75.000 soldiers
19 committed to the battle and the SRK only about 18.000, the SRK had a
20 countervailing territorial and armament advantage. It held the high
21 ground encircling the city and had far more artillery. By January 1993,
22 Sarajevo was surrounded by hundreds of pieces of artillery, including
23 tanks, howitzers, anti-aircraft guns and other weapons. Neither side
24 could deliver the decisive blow. Nevertheless, the SRK could keep engaged
25 in Sarajevo and therefore, out of the rest of the Bosnian theatre, three
Page 565
1 or four ABiH troops for every one of theirs. Further, by moderating the
2 intensity of both legitimate and unlawful attacks on Sarajevo
3 Srpska could exert pressure on its opponent at critical times.
4 For long periods, the residents of this European city were
5 deprived of water, gas, and electricity. Without these essential
6 services, they were regularly forced from the relative safety of their
7 homes in order to queue at water pumps and scrounge firewood, which they
8 would burn in ingeniously instructed stoves for cooking and warmth. For
9 those in high-rise buildings, periods of no electricity meant no elevators
10 in which to carry up their water, fuel, and other essentials.
11 But there was another, darker, dimension to this armed conflict.
12 It soon became apparent that civilians who chose to remain within
13 Sarajevo, within the confrontation lines, were being deliberately
14 targeted. Through television and the print media, the world watched in
15 horror as the people of Sarajevo were fired upon at will as they crossed
16 lines of sight from the SRK-held hills and high-rise buildings.
17 Occupation, age, sex, and ethnic background were irrelevant to the
18 sniper. The indictment has annexed to it some illustrations. A
19 three-year-old child was shot at the door of her home, a nine-year-old as
20 she played in her garden. Civilians were shot in their homes as they
21 watched television, drank coffee, or prayed. They were shot outside their
22 homes as they crossed the street, collected wood, drew water from canals,
23 carried it home, cleared rubbish, chatted and walked with friends, rode in
24 cars, trucks, buses, and trams, on bicycles and buried their dead.
25 It seems no area of human activity was too innocuous, mundane,
Page 566
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 567
1 or sacrosanct to escape the sniper's judgement. Serbs who chose to stay
2 were unforgiven and shot along with their Muslim fellow Sarajevans.
3 In order to maintain a semblance of order and thwart attacks, the
4 dead were buried at night, or during fogs, or simply in odd plots of earth
5 between buildings. New tracks and back routes protected by buildings from
6 known sniper position were used instead of exposed foot paths and roads.
7 Anti-sniping barriers were erected to the same end. Shipping containers,
8 buses, trucks, and other obstacles were placed across intersections which
9 were vulnerable to the SRK positions. The snipers responded to this new
10 challenge by making the most of gaps between the barricades, anticipating
11 when victims would be fleetingly vulnerable.
12 Nowhere, however, was safe from the shelling. The Prosecution
13 will call expert evidence to explain that the artillery which the SRK
14 deployed included both direct fire and indirect-fire weaponry. Direct
15 fire weapons, such as tanks, howitzers, and large calibre guns, as, for
16 instance, anti-aircraft guns and armoured personnel carrier guns, APCs,
17 usually fire along a direct line of sight. Mortars, on the other hand,
18 are designed to travel on an inverted U-shaped trajectory so that they
19 fall into areas which cannot be seen by the mortar crew. Accordingly,
20 they are operated by a crew in radio communication with a forward observer
21 who directs their fire to the target. A mortar shell is specifically
22 designed to kill and maim people. It is not usually used to destroy
23 property. Its casing becomes shrapnel designed to inflict the maximum
24 number of casualties. What's left at the point of impact, if it's a
25 hard surface such as a road, is usually a small indentation. By the end
Page 568
1 of the war, the streets, foot paths, and parking lots of Sarajevo
2 peppered with the telltale star pattern of mortar impacts known as mortar
3 roses.
4 During the period covered by the indictment, mortars were used by
5 the SRK to a devastating effect against civilians engaged in a variety of
6 activities where they congregated in the open out of a direct line of
7 sight with SRK positions. For instance, a soccer game, waterline cues,
8 groups of playing children, a crowded secluded marketplace, schools,
9 hospitals and even funeral processions. The scheduled shelling incidents
10 demonstrates some of these. This campaign of deliberate sniping and
11 shelling of civilians is the foundation of the Prosecution case against
12 Major General Galic.
13 It is important to note at this point that the Prosecution case,
14 as set out in its pre-trial brief, is that shelling was used sometimes
15 with the intention of hitting a specific target of civilians and at other
16 times indiscriminately against civilians. That is, the crew would
17 deliberately fire shells into known civilian areas not necessarily with
18 the intention of hitting a particular target of civilians but rather with
19 the knowledge that wherever it landed, it was likely to endanger
20 civilians. To place it in its proper legal context, this practice
21 offended the principle of distinction, to which I will later refer.
22 The world watched in disbelief that the perpetrators acted with
23 impunity, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after
24 year. It so tore at the world's conscience that, in no small measure, it
25 contributed to the establishment of this Tribunal.
Page 569
1 During the three and a half years of the battle of Sarajevo
2 were three principle commanders of the SRK. The second of those three,
3 Major General Stanislav Galic, who I will hereafter usually refer to as
4 the accused, was the commander for the longest period, almost two years,
5 from around the 10th of September, 1992
6 So far I have frequently referred to the battle in terms which
7 cover its entirety rather than specifically to the indictment period,
8 which corresponds to the accused's tenure as commander of the SRK.
9 Indeed, the Chamber will shortly view a collage of video clips which
10 predate the indictment period, as well as portray events during it. The
11 reasons are three-fold. Firstly, it is the Prosecution case that the
12 accused inherited a pre-existing strategy of the deliberate sniping and
13 shelling of civilians. Secondly, the characteristics of the campaign,
14 before, during, and even after his tenure, are essentially identical.
15 Thirdly, I mean to place the accused's actions in their proper historical
16 context. Naturally, the accused is only accountable for the
17 responsibilities which fell to him as a result of his period as commander.
18 Even in relation to the indictment period, the Prosecution does
19 not say that all wrongdoing was attributable to the accused or indeed that
20 all wrongdoing was perpetrated from the accused's side of the
21 confrontation lines. There is evidence that civilians on both sides of
22 the confrontation lines were deliberately targeted. It is trite to
23 observe that unlawful behaviour against civilians by the accused's
24 opponents did not entitle him to do likewise.
25 I will now seek to acquaint the Chamber with the layout of
Page 570
1 Sarajevo. In so doing, I take the Trial Chamber to a diagram.
2 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Mr. Ierace.
3 JUDGE ORIE: Microphone, please.
4 MR. IERACE: I take the Trial Chamber to a map --
5 JUDGE ORIE: Is the Defence in a position to look at it or --
6 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour, for
7 raising the issue. As is usual, the Defence is absolutely not able to
8 see.
9 JUDGE ORIE: Can you see it now on the screen, or have you direct
10 sight on it?
11 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Thank you very much, Your
12 Honour. Yes, with a little delay.
13 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you.
14 MR. IERACE: Mr. President and Your Honours, the map to which I
15 now point depicts the city of Sarajevo. You will observe that there are
16 two green lines, one lighter and one darker, which with encircle the
17 city. The city appears as a developed area on the map. The two green
18 lines depict the confrontation lines between the SRK and the ABiH. As
19 I've already observed, those lines remained relatively static throughout
20 the war. You will note that at some points, those lines came very close
21 together, sometimes as close as 50 metres. At other points they were much
22 further apart.
23 I also point out that the lines at some points travelled into the
24 urban area of the city. That applies to this area, which is the Grbavica
25 area, and also to the left on the map in the area of Dobrinja. Dobrinja
Page 571
1 was the Olympic village for the 1984 Winter Olympics, and following that
2 event it became a residential apartment block area. It adjoins the
3 airport.
4 The map also depicts the various scheduled sniping incidents, that
5 is, where they took place, or more particularly, where the victims were at
6 the time that they were shot. Those positions are depicted by the red
7 dots. Your Honours will note that there is a reference to 27, but number
8 1 was a "U" beside it, and that is because, Mr. President, your
9 predecessor descheduled that incident but allowed the Prosecution to
10 continue to call evidence on it. So its current status is as an
11 unscheduled sniping incident.
12 The blue dots depict the places where the scheduled shelling
13 incidents occurred. The reference to A, B, C, and so on are references to
14 particular shells. So, for instance, shelling incident 1, which occurred
15 in Dobrinja, involved two mortar shells, so in close proximity. Scheduled
16 incident 4, which also occurred in Dobrinja, involved three shells.
17 I also point out on the map a star, which marks the position of
18 the Lukavica barracks. Those military barracks became the forward command
19 post for the accused, and indeed they were his forward command post
20 throughout the indictment period. The Trial Chamber will note the
21 proximity of the barracks to the Dobrinja residential area.
22 Your Honours, I appreciate that it is difficult from a map when
23 one is not familiar with what it depicts to gain much from it. At this
24 stage I simply make the point that the development of Sarajevo
25 to run in an east/west line and to be relatively narrow.
Page 572
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 573
1 I now take Your Honours to some photographs, and before I do that,
2 I will lay a plastic sheet over the map to demonstrate where the
3 photographs I'm about to take you to were taken from.
4 The first photograph was taken from this position, Trebevic, and
5 the two lines indicate what will be shortly seen in the photograph. So
6 firstly, Your Honours will note that the camera was pointing approximately
7 north, that is, from the southern edge of the city, looking across it, in
8 a northwards direction, but within the photograph you will be able to see
9 much of what lay to the west.
10 I now take the Trial Chamber to that photograph. This is that
11 photograph, and I'll wait until the video camera depicts it. Perhaps if
12 the camera could zoom back to allow as much of the photograph to be seen
13 at the same time. At this stage I'm concerned only with the top
14 photograph. So this is a photograph taken from Trebevic looking across
15 the city, encompassing more or less the developed area furthest to the
16 east, and to the west we can see disappearing down the valley floor the
17 rest of the city. I point out firstly some obvious geographical
18 features. One can observe from this photograph that the city lies at the
19 base of a valley floor, and indeed a river runs along it. One can also
20 observe that towards the west, the valley floor -- indeed, the valley
21 flattens out to a plain. If you come back to the eastern side of the
22 city, the side to the east is sometimes called the old city, and in terms
23 of the three principal communities of Sarajevo
24 with the Bosniak community, and indeed it is the oldest part of the city.
25 There is an area towards the centre of the photograph which is
Page 574
1 known to be a focal point for the Croat Sarajevan community, or was before
2 the war, at least. To the east, one notices that there are more high-rise
3 modern buildings, and they were characterised by a more mixed community,
4 and as such in the more modern area there was a large Bosnian Serb
5 component amongst the residents.
6 I now point out in the photograph the two principle hospitals of
7 Sarajevo which were operating at the time. I should say that this
8 photograph was taken last year, in the year 2000, but for my purposes,
9 nothing much has changed since the indictment period. I firstly point out
10 the grounds of the Kosevo hospital, which was a little up from the
11 valley floor, towards the north of the city, and that was a large hospital
12 complex.
13 I now point out the second biggest hospital, which was known as
14 the State Hospital
15 collage which the Trial Chamber will later view, you will see a portion
16 which shows a sniper's nest which was positioned coincidentally from
17 around the same area as where this photograph was taken from. And this
18 portion of this photograph can be seen through the hole from the sniper's
19 nest which gave a view of the city, including the State Hospital and the
20 site of one of these scheduled sniping incidents.
21 I now point out the Marsal Tito barracks, will featured
22 prominently in the pre-indictment period, and Your Honours will likely to
23 hear evidence about it only in that context. Along the valley floor ran
24 arterial roads, one in particular, which was the -- and remains the main
25 communication link for vehicular traffic through the city of Sarajevo.
Page 575
1 That road travels more or less through the centre of the valley at this
2 modern western end, and then, as it comes to the central part of the
3 photograph, runs alongside the river, which is where I'm pointing at the
4 moment.
5 This photograph also shows the assembly building, another
6 structure which featured prominently in the pre-indictment period, and as
7 this photograph shows, at the time it was taken, still shows the signs of
8 heavy shelling. The area of Grbavica is in the foreground beneath the
9 ridge, which is immediately visible in the photograph. Your Honours, will
10 hear much of Grbavica during the trial. It was the source of much sniping
11 activity into the city and an area held by the SRK.
12 I also point out, and it may be difficult for the video camera to
13 pick it up - if the video camera could perhaps zoom in - the approximate
14 position in the old city of the Markale market. That was a scene of the
15 worst civilian devastation by shelling in one particular incident which
16 occurred on the 5th of February, 1994, when one mortar shell, size 120
17 millimetre, killed 66 people who were attending the market at the time.
18 The approximate direction of fire of that shell was from the Markovici
19 area, which is behind a ridge, which probably cannot be easily made out by
20 the video camera at about this point.
21 In front of it, and to the left, is a well-known local position
22 known as sharp stone, translation of sharp stone. That was a ridge which
23 approximated the position of the confrontation lines at that point, so
24 that the SRK occupied the plateau-like high ground and then beneath the
25 ridge, a short distance away, was the confrontation line separating it
Page 576
1 from the ABiH. A number of sniping incidents occurred in that area
2 beneath sharp stone, sharp stone being the source of fire.
3 Your Honours, I return to the diagram with the plastic overlay,
4 and I now point out the position of a second panorama photograph that I'll
5 take you to. The lines indicate the position of the camera at the time
6 this photograph was taken, which was just a few months ago,
7 September/October 2001. The view which appears in the photograph
8 encompasses Lukavica barracks and the area where number 3 scheduled
9 shelling incidents occurred, as well as three scheduled sniping
10 incidents. So the direction of the camera is approximately
11 south/south-west.
12 I come now to that photograph, and perhaps the camera in the first
13 instance could zoom back as far as possible to give the viewers a sense of
14 what is depicted overall. And I notice, Your Honours, that part of the
15 photograph is obstructed by -- that's better. All right.
16 Now, again it's apparent that this photograph was taken from high
17 ground. You can see beneath the hill the apartment development of
18 Dobrinja, which I said earlier was the village for the Winter Olympics
19 of 1984, and in the foreground, the runway, or one of the runways, for
20 the airport.
21 Coming to the left of the photograph, you can see the words
22 "Lukavica barracks," and I now point to that complex, which can be seen
23 to be behind what appears in the photograph to be a white road at a
24 T-intersection. On that T-intersection in particular, if you could zoom
25 in - I'd be grateful if the camera could zoom in to this point where the
Page 577
1 pointer is - there appears to be a two-storey white building. That was of
2 the office of the accused in his forward barracks. In particular, he was
3 on the top floor, and in the front corner of the building, to the right.
4 Moving further along the photograph, one comes to a church, and
5 further again, one comes to the site of shelling incident 1 and sniping
6 incident 6. I come back to the left of the photograph, and I'll shortly
7 show you a diagram which will show the precise position of the
8 confrontation lines, which was approximately at this point.
9 Shelling incident 1 occurred in the forecourt of a U-shaped
10 complex -- apartment complex. Virtually identical to the complex which
11 can be seen immediately to its left. That is, three sides facing towards
12 the hill where the camera is positioned. So that is virtually replicated
13 behind the trees to the right. On that occasion, a soccer game was being
14 held in a car park, to the right, and the direction of the two mortar
15 shells was from the area of Lukavica.
16 As I've earlier indicated, we can see in this photograph the
17 approximate position of sniping incident 6.
18 Your Honours, the nature of the individual crimes which constitute
19 the crime base for the indictment are such that they are difficult to
20 convey in a courtroom. In the case of sniping, they involve persons being
21 shot in the open. In circumstances where the killer is secluded in the
22 case of shelling, the use of indirect fire means that those who were
23 present at the place where the shell landed generally did not see where
24 the shell emanated from. The Prosecution is aware of the difficulties
25 that these factors present to the Trial Chamber in understanding the
Page 578
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 579
1 evidence which the Prosecution shall call. Traditional means of conveying
2 a crime scene involve the use of photographs and maps, and indeed they
3 would go part of the way to placing Your Honours in the position where the
4 crime scene can be imagined, according to the evidence. In order to
5 better assist the Trial Chamber, the Prosecution has prepared a video of
6 each of the sniping and shelling incidents. In relation to the sniping
7 incidents, if the victim survived and is available to give evidence, the
8 victim was videoed at the scene, pointing out precisely where they were at
9 the time they were hit. This exercise was undertaken in the last few
10 months. If, however, the victim was fatally wounded, an eyewitness to the
11 incident appears on the video, pointing out, to the best of their
12 recollection, where the victim was at precisely the moment that they were
13 shot.
14 A member of the OTP is then seen to place a yellow cross on that
15 precise spot according to the direction of the eyewitness or the surviving
16 victim. Later, a tripod was erected over those yellow spots and the
17 camera lens fixed at a height approximating the height of the point of
18 entry on the body of the victim of the bullet. A professional
19 photographer then took photographs depicting a 360-degree view from that
20 position, the position where the bullet entered the body of the victim.
21 These photographs were later joined up, with appropriate software,
22 so that a continuous, 360-degree image can be made available to the Trial
23 Chamber. It can be played in court, and by the use of the computer mouse,
24 one can navigate in any direction, up and down, zooming in, and zooming
25 out, panning back. Defence counsel, Ms. Pilipovic, was able to attend the
Page 580
1 filming of some of these incidents in September of this year. The
2 scheduled shelling incidents were videoed in the same fashion. All of
3 those who participated in the shooting of the video footage will be made
4 available by the Prosecution to give evidence and to attest to the truth
5 of what they are heard to say on the video and what they did on the
6 video. In due course, and in that fashion, all of the video of the
7 incidents will be tendered by the Prosecution. It will be tendered in
8 edited form, but I hasten to add that an un-cut version has been disclosed
9 to the Defence. The edited form will include a note at the commencement
10 of each segment indicating the date on which it was filmed, the particular
11 scheduled incident to which it relates, the names of all those who were
12 present during the filming and their roles, for instance, investigator,
13 interpreter, name of the witness, camera people, the GPS position of
14 the site, that is, the global satellite positioning system, so that we are
15 with best able to provide an accurate record of where that place was, and
16 in the un-cut footage the GPS machine is held up to the camera lens so
17 that the reading can be recorded. The direction of the video camera or in
18 some cases video cameras were facing. When the panoramic photographs were
19 taken, the camera invariably started off pointing north and then took a
20 series of photographs around, so that it's possible to figure out what
21 direction one is looking in as one and a navigates around the photographs.
22 I will take you now to a sample incident using this technology,
23 and the incident is sniping incident 6. The schedule for that incident
24 reads: 11 July 1993, Munira Zametica a woman aged 48 years was shot dead
25 while collecting water from the Dobrinja River in the area of Dobrinja 2
Page 581
1 and 3. The scene of the killing therefore was the Dobrinja River, which
2 flowed through Dobrinja in a cement-lined canal. Local residents would
3 draw water from it, since the water supply to their homes had been cut
4 off. The canal ran an approximately east/west direction from the
5 direction of Lukavica. At this point I will show the Trial Chamber a
6 diagram -- or should I say a portion of a larger map which has been blown
7 up to illustrate the relevant details.
8 Your Honours, perhaps I could have some assistance in having
9 the -- that second map mounted higher than it presently is.
10 This is a detail of the first map. It's electronically based so
11 it's possible to blow up any particular portion of it. We see at the red
12 dot the position of sniping incident 6, and the Trial Chamber -- I invite
13 the Trial Chamber to note that nearby the two other sniping incidents,
14 being 18 and 22. One can also see on this map the position of shelling
15 incident 1, which is in this area that I indicate now.
16 The large red circle is the position of the church which appeared
17 on the panorama photograph. To the left of it can be seen the
18 confrontation lines, light green being the most forward position of the
19 ABiH forces, dark green being the most forward position of the SRK
20 forces. The significance of the Mahine [phoen] church is that the
21 Prosecution will call evidence that there was a regular pattern of sniping
22 into the Dobrinja area from that building during the indictment period.
23 As well, there was regular sniping from a part of a block of apartments
24 which is marked by the small red dot. Indeed, it was a particular part of
25 the apartment block that was occupied by the SRK.
Page 582
1 The evidence will indicate that the distance between the church
2 and sniping incident 6 was around 900 metres, and between the apartment
3 block and incident 6 was around 740 metres. The blue line is the Dobrinja
4 River, although its appearance is more in the form of the concrete-lined
5 canal.
6 The witnesses will give evidence that typically, sniper fire came
7 down the canal and alongside the canal. At various positions alongside
8 it, since it traversed a heavily occupied residential area, were a
9 collection of foot bridges, such as one immediately alongside incident
10 6, and wider road bridges, such as near incident 18. Barricades were
11 erected on the bridges at different times. I point to another bridge
12 behind incident 6.
13 Those who collected water from --
14 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
15 MR. IERACE: -- were regularly subjected to fire and many others
16 had been shot previously at around the same place as sniping incident 6.
17 Sometimes the sniping would continue all day and day after day. This
18 incident occurred beneath the foot bridge which I've earlier indicated.
19 On the 11th of July, 1993, a sunny day, at about 2.00 p.m., the victim and
20 a neighbour, [redacted], approached the bridge in order to draw
21 water from the canal. They saw several people sheltering against the side
22 of the concrete foundations of the bridge, which afforded them protection
23 from the direction of the SRK positions. The people who were already
24 there told them they had seen bullets hitting the water. The group then
25 took turns to quickly venture from their protected position down to the
Page 583
1 water's edge to quickly fill their containers. One went, then another,
2 and then the victim approached to fill her bucket. As she did so, she was
3 hit in the chest. She turned and was hit by a bullet in the neck and
4 fell. Her 16-year-old daughter was nearby and was summoned by those
5 present. She came and saw her mother lying face down near the water's
6 edge. She and the others were prevented from pulling the victim back to
7 safety by continued gunfire. Her daughter saw the bullets hitting the
8 water. The victim's son arrived and attempts were made to reach her, but
9 they were always forced back by the continuing gunfire, until another
10 neighbour obtained some rope and tied it around the arm of the victim,
11 which enabled them all to then pull her to a more protected area, by which
12 time she was dead.
13 In the video, which Your Honours are about to view, the victim is
14 a neighbour, (redacted), who accompanied her to the site and was
15 standing alongside the concrete foundations a few metres from the victim
16 at the time she was shot, was asked to indicate where firstly she was
17 located at the time of the shooting and then where the victim was located
18 at the precise moment she was shot. You will then see another person
19 place a cross on the spot nominated with yellow spray paint, following the
20 directions of the neighbour. You will hear all words which were spoken in
21 English by the investigator on the video being translated by the neighbour
22 into B/C/S. And I ask that the video be shown.
23 [Videotape played]
24 MALE: Can you please indicate your location to the best of
25 your recollection on the day that Mrs. Munira Zametica was shot?
Page 584
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 585
1 FEMALE: [No interpretation]
2 MALE: Can you please indicate to the best of your recollection
3 where Mrs. Zametica was located at the time that she was shot?
4 FEMALE: [No interpretation]
5 MALE: When Mr. Lesic reaches the location -- Mr. Lesic is marking
6 that location where with yellow spray paint.
7 MR. IERACE: As I've already said, following the shooting of the
8 video, a series of photographs were taken from that yellow cross, and
9 ultimately there were, via software, made available in computer form,
10 A 360-degree view. I ask that that photograph be brought up on the
11 screen. And I ask that the photograph be navigated as it is 360 degrees.
12 One can see at this stage looking approximately east up the canal
13 underneath the bridge, and keep in mind this is taken from the position of
14 the victim, approximate height of the bullet. We're now looking back up
15 the slope in an approximate southerly direction, to the bank. And now
16 roughly west, down the canal, away from the Lukavica area, the area of the
17 church. And presently we're looking approximately north.
18 I ask that the photograph be navigated to the position looking
19 approximately east down the canal and that it now be zoomed in along the
20 canal.
21 The evidence will be that the white building, the white tower,
22 which can be just seen to the right, is the spire of the church which
23 appears in the earlier panoramic photograph. The building which was
24 occupied by the SRK is to the left, just behind those bushes which have
25 grown since. Evidence will make this clear in due course. It will be
Page 586
1 possible to go, during the trial, to clearer photographs of that view.
2 Thank you.
3 JUDGE NIETO-NAVIA: Mr. Ierace, do we have that photograph?
4 MR. IERACE: Yes. I have that photograph at the bar table in hard
5 copy form, and I understand Your Honours have a copy of it. And I think
6 my friends have a copy. I understand that they were given a copy, or
7 copies were provided for them.
8 One can see more clearly in this photograph the church. While the
9 panoramic photograph is still before the Court, I will take Your Honours
10 back to it briefly to make a point. Your Honours, my point is this: I
11 indicate the church which has appeared on the panoramic photo on the
12 video, and I indicate again the position of Lukavica barracks in which the
13 accused had his office. And I make the point that it is a relatively
14 short distance from his office to the source of fire for sniping which was
15 carried out on Dobrinja throughout the indictment period. I anticipate
16 that evidence will establish these propositions.
17 I turn now to a brief reference to the relevant law. First I make
18 the point that although the battle was often popularly referred to as a
19 siege, it was not necessarily a siege in the way that term is understood
20 militarily or in international law, and it is irrelevant to the issues in
21 this case to make such a determination.
22 Ultimately, this case is not about why the campaign in Sarajevo
23 was fought. It is about how it was conducted. Indeed, this is the first
24 case before this Tribunal with an explicit, indeed exclusive, focus upon
25 the conduct of hostilities, and in particular, the scope of a military
Page 587
1 commander's obligation to protect civil life during armed combat.
2 Since the confrontation lines at some points traversed urban
3 areas, we can assume that there were many legitimate military targets
4 within the city confines. Consequently, the Prosecution does not argue
5 that the overall military campaign in Sarajevo
6 attacks which took place during the indictment period did not comprise
7 lawful combat activities.
8 However, alongside and parallel to lawful combat operations, it is
9 abundantly clear that civilians were unlawfully sniped and shelled on such
10 a temporal and geographic scale as to constitute a deliberate campaign,
11 which was conducted with the intent of striking terror into every civilian
12 in the city.
13 In the course of this trial, Your Honours will be referred to
14 several baseline principles of international humanitarian law that are
15 essential to a conduct of hostilities case but which have perhaps been
16 less pertinent to many other cases previously adjudicated by this
17 Tribunal.
18 The first of these is the principle of distinction. This
19 principle, the bedrock norm of international humanitarian law, obliges a
20 military commander to differentiate, at all times, between civilian and
21 military objects. He is obliged, at all times, to direct force only
22 against military objectives.
23 The definition of a military object is not entirely free from
24 dispute. It is beyond contention, however, that it is only combatants who
25 are lawful targets, and civilians are not. Similarly, buildings and
Page 588
1 objects used for military purposes may be targeted, whereas those used
2 exclusively for civilian purposes may not.
3 The second fundamental principle is that of proportionality, which
4 obliges a military commander, when deciding whether to launch an attack
5 against a legitimate military object, to undertake a particular type of
6 calculus. He must evaluate whether the military advantage anticipated
7 from the attack would be outweighed by the extent of civilian losses
8 likely to result from it.
9 A rational assessment of proportionality must be undertaken prior
10 to and during the carrying out of the attacks. The overriding, governing
11 principle in this regard is that of reasonableness in all the
12 circumstances prevailing at the time.
13 The Prosecution's case is that attacks carried out by forces under
14 the command and control of the accused did not evidence a proportional
15 character when assessed against notions of reasonableness which would be
16 accepted by most responsible military commanders.
17 The Prosecution notes that the present case confronts the Trial
18 Chamber with a virtually unprecedented opportunity to elucidate principles
19 to guide the practical application of these bedrock norms of international
20 humanitarian law within modern armed combat. Simply stated, the doctrine
21 that will be developed in this case will be of intense interest to, and
22 may well form an operational litmus test for, responsible military forces
23 worldwide.
24 I turn now in particular to the counts. Six of the seven counts
25 in the indictment against the accused are concerned specifically with the
Page 589
1 killing and wounding of civilians as a consequence of the campaign. The
2 remaining count, which is the first in the indictment, is that the accused
3 violated the laws or customs of war by inflicting terror and mental
4 suffering on the civilian population of Sarajevo
5 campaign. I want to focus on this count.
6 During the indictment period, the number of civilian casualties
7 from the campaign ran into the thousands. However, in contrast to the
8 other six counts, the victims of this crime were not limited to the
9 Sarajevans who were killed or wounded but, as well, those who were
10 terrorised as a result of the campaign.
11 Had the accused wished to simply kill as many Sarajevans as
12 possible, this was not the way to do it. He was equipped with the means
13 to extract higher civilian casualty figures had that been his intention.
14 The city was ringed with hills which contained hundreds of mortars, tanks,
15 howitzers, rockets, and other artillery.
16 It is apparent from the characteristics of the campaign over such
17 a protracted period that the intention was not to kill as many civilians
18 as possible, but rather to inculcate in each citizen the realisation that,
19 so long as he or she remained in Sarajevo
20 under an inescapable risk of death. As some witnesses will observe, a
21 morbid fatalism overtook many civilians, expressed in the belief that it
22 was futile to overly seek protection from mortars and the sniper's
23 bullet. Death was unavoidable and would come regardless of what steps
24 they took to prevent it. Soldiers expressed a feeling of greater security
25 at the front line than when off-duty in the civilian areas, since at the
Page 590
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 591
1 front they knew where danger lay, whereas elsewhere in the city, death
2 could come from anywhere, at any time.
3 As noted earlier, witnesses will be called to testify as to
4 examples of the campaign. The scheduled incidents have been chosen to
5 illustrate the range of everyday activities that civilians were engaged
6 in at the time they were targeted. Beyond these scheduled incidents,
7 those same witnesses will also testify about other incidents involving
8 themselves and neighbours and friends and loved ones. A Sarajevan of this
9 period typically knew many in his circle who had become victims of the
10 campaign. In this fashion, a picture will emerge to the Trial Chamber of
11 the pervasiveness of the campaign, its penetration of the fabric of
12 Sarajevan society and the manner in which it delivered a sense of fear and
13 terror far beyond its immediate victims.
14 This unrelenting psychological stress exacted a horrific toll
15 upon the well-being of the civilian populace, as reflected in attendances
16 at psychiatric clinics during and after the conflict. Expert psychiatric
17 evidence will be tendered to establish that the fear prevalent in Sarajevo
18 during the indictment period was extreme, and far exceeded that which
19 would be the normal and expected threshold of anxiety within armed
20 conflict.
21 This count is not concerned with the fear, and sometimes terror,
22 which is inevitably felt by civilians who are caught up in an armed
23 conflict, and no doubt was experienced by many civilians in Sarajevo
24 That is quite different in nature and degree from the terror which comes
25 from the sure knowledge that you and your loved ones are in fact the
Page 592
1 intended target and there is nowhere to hide.
2 The suffering of civilians was not merely an incidental by-product
3 of the armed conflict in Sarajevo, but rather the intended consequence,
4 and the actual effect, of the unlawful attacks perpetrated by the forces
5 under the command and control of the accused. The inescapable conclusion
6 in this regard is that the attacks against the civilians of Sarajevo
7 during the indictment period were designed principally, even if not
8 exclusively, to terrorise the civilian population of Sarajevo
9 Although it is well recognised that the deliberate and avoidable
10 infliction of terror upon civilians as an objective is contrary to
11 customary international law, this charge has not previously been
12 adjudicated before any international judicial body. Both protocols
13 additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 prohibit the infliction of
14 terror upon a civilian population in the manner in which the accused did
15 so, through forces under his command and control.
16 Often the infliction of terror will be linked to the specific
17 goals of the perpetrator. In this case, it meshed closely with the
18 broader aims of the Bosnian Serb leadership. Clearly, had the terror
19 imparted by the campaign weakened the civilians' morale or the political
20 will of their government to a point that it capitulated, these aims would
21 have been served. I will now turn my attention more particularly to the
22 accused. He was born on 12 March 1943 in Golesa village, Banja Luka
23 municipality, in the Republika Srpska Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was a
24 career soldier in the JNA, ultimately becoming commander of the 30th
25 partisan Division. When the transition of the JNA into the army of the
Page 593
1 Republika Srpska, known as the VRS, occurred in May of 1992, he remained
2 the commander of the Division, renamed the 30th infantry Division, and
3 took part in a number of military operations within the operational area
4 of the 1st Krajina Corps, including Jajce. He was appointed to the
5 position of commander of the Sarajevo Romanija Corps by the president of
6 the Republika Srpska Presidency, Dr. Radovan Karadzic, on the 31st of
7 August, 1992. In November of the same year, he was promoted from Colonel
8 to Major General. He remained commander until in August 1994 he was
9 replaced, and shortly afterwards retired from active service by official
10 decree on the 30th of September, 1994.
11 Accordingly, the accused assumed command of the SRK as an
12 experienced, professional soldier, fresh from active duty elsewhere.
13 I turn now to the military doctrine. The military doctrine of the
14 JNA effectively became that for the VRS, so the accused and his
15 subordinates continued to operate under the doctrine with which he was
16 familiar.
17 The central tenet of that system was that each level of the
18 structure acted under the orders of the superior. A system of regular
19 briefings and distribution of written documentation carried these orders
20 down the chain, and daily reporting brought back up to the superiors the
21 results of the orders being carried out. In this manner, the corps acted
22 as one integrated unit which carried out the orders of the supreme
23 commander.
24 According to that doctrine, the designated commander is vested
25 with the authority to command his staff, subordinate units, institutions,
Page 594
1 and the personnel which comprise those bodies. It also establishes the
2 responsibility of a commander, reiterating the concept that while a
3 commander can delegate authority to subordinate officers, he remains
4 responsible for the actions of those subordinates.
5 Shortly following its formation, the Republika Srpska adopted key
6 instruments of the international law of armed force. In so doing, it
7 acknowledged the responsibility of each level of its military structure to
8 respect international law which governs armed conflicts.
9 The commander-in-chief of the VRS was the President, Dr. Radovan
10 Karadzic. Directly subordinate to him was General Ratko Mladic, who was
11 the commander of the main staff of the VRS. Under the main staff command
12 were the various corps of the VRS, including the SRK.
13 I will now turn to the structure of the SRK. The Trial Chamber, I
14 anticipate, will be concerned with where the units which conducted sniping
15 and shelling fitted into that structure, and what disciplinary related
16 measures and resources the accused had available to him.
17 In relation to the term "sniping," it is important to understand
18 that its use in this trial by the Prosecution is not confined to its
19 strict military meaning, which is of a professional marksman utilizing a
20 specialised rifle and scope. Instead, it is used in a broader sense, to
21 include regular troops and the use of such armaments as hunting rifles,
22 machine-guns, and anti-aircraft guns. In the video collage that you will
23 view shortly, you will see a machine-gun in a sniper's nest overlooking
24 the city, known amongst Sarajevans at the time as the Death Sower for that
25 type of machine-gun, and this one, Your Honours will see, was fitted with
Page 595
1 a telescopic site, and also there was an anti-aircraft gun.
2 I take you now to a diagram of the structure of the SRK. In
3 taking you through this diagram, I want to highlight the chain of
4 responsibility and how the artillery unit and sniper assets, as well as
5 the regular troops and commanders were responsible to the accused. The
6 essential structure of the SRK involved four levels of forces under the
7 command of the accused. They were the accused's Main Staff at the corps
8 headquarters, the brigades, the battalions, and the companies. There were
9 nine brigades, about 2.000 soldiers in each. The battalions were at least
10 37 in number, about 200 to 700 soldiers in each, and finally, the
11 companies comprised about 50 soldiers in each. As noted earlier, the
12 central tenet of the VRS military doctrine was that each level operated
13 under the orders of a superior. To put it another way, the 18.000 troops
14 of the SRK were all ultimately responsible to the accused and acted on his
15 orders. It was his job to know what was going on and to control the tempo
16 and direction of combat activities.
17 The accused would provide his operational objectives to say his
18 Main Staff, who would develop a plan to put those objectives into effect.
19 Orders were given to the implementation of the plan, which were then
20 conveyed down the chain of command by daily briefings, and I indicate
21 those lines of communication. Firstly, from the corps headquarters to the
22 brigade headquarters, that is, the headquarters of the nine brigades.
23 Those nine brigades ringed the city of Sarajevo
24 down the line from the brigades to the battalions, and then from the
25 battalions to the companies.
Page 596
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 597
1 Your Honours, the lines of communication operated in both
2 directions to carry back up the chain from the lowest rung of the
3 structure, daily reports as to the implementation of the orders and
4 other combat activities.
5 This communication system is typical of that which applies to
6 modern armed forces. It is a sensible means of ensuring that the forces,
7 at even the lowest rung, understand what is required of them, and
8 similarly, that their commander, in this case the accused, was thoroughly
9 familiar with the activities of his forces. In this manner, the corps
10 acted as one integrated formation, which carried out the orders of their
11 overall commander, the accused.
12 The diagram also demonstrates that within the Corps structure
13 under his command, the accused had military police units, had he wanted to
14 involve them in the investigation of allegations of unlawful conduct by
15 his troops, and I indicate those.
16 Firstly, a battalion of military police which was responsible
17 directly under the corps headquarters, and in relation to the battalions,
18 there were also military police companies. The diagram indicates those
19 companies of which the Prosecution has evidence, the Prosecution
20 anticipates that, in fact, each of the brigades would have had such
21 military police units.
22 Finally, in relation to the diagram, I point out the artillery and
23 sniping units. The artillery units appear in red at various stages down
24 the structure of the SRK. I come back to the first group of boxes that I
25 indicated, and I invite the Trial Chamber to note that these artillery
Page 598
1 units were directly responsible to the accused's Main Staff. In other
2 words, his senior subordinates. At the brigade and battalion level, there
3 were further artillery units. The diagram also indicates by the green
4 boxes where the --
5 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Ierace, if you would allow me, we have got a copy
6 in front of us without any colours. So you're referring to colours which
7 are very difficult to see on the screen. Would it be possible to have
8 perhaps during the break, which I intend to have in a couple of minutes,
9 to provide us and the Defence with copies with colours, please?
10 MR. IERACE: Yes, Your Honour, that can be done.
11 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you.
12 MR. IERACE: Would that be a convenient time, Your Honour?
13 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Of course, it depends -- how much time do you
14 still think you need?
15 MR. IERACE: Your Honour, in order to complete the opening, I
16 should think about 20 minutes, perhaps 30.
17 JUDGE ORIE: I think also keeping in mind that the Translation
18 Services need some rest as well. Perhaps if you can finish this part,
19 let's say, in a couple of minutes and we'll then have a break. I don't
20 know whether this is a, as you say, at this moment or in two or three
21 minutes. I don't know what your --
22 MR. IERACE: Indeed, Your Honour, this would be a convenient time,
23 because at this point I was about to leave the diagram and go to a
24 different aspect of command responsibility.
25 JUDGE ORIE: So you're finished with the diagram.
Page 599
1 MR. IERACE: Yes.
2 JUDGE ORIE: And then we'll have a break. And I have difficulties
3 in -- because of the reflections to look at the clock, but we'll resume at
4 4.15.
5 --- Recess taken at 3.43 p.m.
6 --- On resuming at 4.17 p.m.
7 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Ierace, for providing us with a colour
8 copy of the schedule. The Defence has got a colour copy as well? Thank
9 you.
10 Mr. Ierace, you may proceed.
11 MR. IERACE: Thank you, Mr. President.
12 Before I leave the chart, I will briefly point out with the ELMO
13 the relevant boxes in relation to artillery and sniping. It's now
14 possible to see the red boxes which indicate the artillery units, and I'll
15 point to those, and also the position in the structure where the snipers
16 operated, and that is within the companies.
17 The diagram also indicates the reporting and briefing structure,
18 that is, briefings going down all the way to the company level and then
19 reporting coming back up.
20 I now turn to the responsibility of the accused pursuant to
21 Article 7(1) of the Statute. The Prosecution contends that the unlawful
22 acts set forth in the indictment, and in particular, the schedules to the
23 indictment, and those of similar character, were planned or ordered by the
24 accused. Armies operate on principles of subordination and control. Acts
25 which forces carry out in theatre are, over time, those which their
Page 600
1 commanders have ordered. When I say "ordered," I do not necessarily mean
2 that the accused recorded these orders in writing. Indeed, given the
3 blatant and serious degree of unlawfulness of the campaign, it would be
4 surprising if written orders to this effect still exist, or were ever
5 issued other than orally. The world was watching. The same could be said
6 for the reports back up the structure to the Corps Commander, the
7 accused. The temporal and geographic scale of the campaign demonstrates
8 it to have been a deliberate campaign, which must have been the result
9 of orders which came down from the highest level of command in the SRK,
10 namely, from the accused. This campaign could not have continued for 22
11 months, throughout the city, on the other side of the confrontation lines
12 from the accused, with the fire emanating from the SRK side of the
13 confrontation lines, had it not been on the accused's orders.
14 This sustained military operation did not just spontaneously
15 occur. It was in place before he arrived and, as evidenced by the
16 continued provision of ammunition alone by him to those who were carrying
17 out the campaign, he chose to continue and sustain it. The fact that he
18 was probably following orders from his superiors, General Mladic and
19 President Karadzic, when issuing his orders to continue the campaign, does
20 not relieve him of responsibility.
21 In relation to Article 7(3) of the Statute, even if, extraordinary
22 as it seems, the accused had not ordered the campaign, customary
23 international law poses clear obligations upon commanders to prevent or
24 punish the unlawful acts of subordinates. The accused did nothing to
25 prevent the campaign from continuing, and did not punish those who were
Page 601
1 responsible. This cements his responsibility.
2 Although in his pre-trial brief the accused denies it, there can
3 be no doubt that he knew that unlawful acts were being committed by his
4 subordinates, given the SRK reporting systems that were designed to inform
5 him of daily combat activities right down to the lowest ranking
6 commander. It is extraordinary to suggest that these attacks were not
7 communicated up the chain, albeit not necessarily in written form, given
8 their highly unlawful nature.
9 Quite apart from the SRK reporting system, the accused and his
10 senior subordinates in his corps headquarters were the frequent recipients
11 of formal complaints about the shelling and sniping of civilians by
12 numerous UN military observers and UN protection force senior officers,
13 who had contact with him and his senior subordinates.
14 And then there was the media. Journalists from around the world
15 travelled to Sarajevo to report on the war.
16 In his pre-trial brief, which was filed with this Chamber a few
17 weeks ago, the accused claimed that no one in the SRK ever admitted to him
18 that they were deliberately sniping civilians, and that the UN
19 representatives never told him the identity of the perpetrators. The
20 corollary, it seems, is that he felt it inappropriate to order an
21 investigation until he was told the name of his soldier who pulled the
22 trigger for a specific incident, or at least his specific unit, and
23 therefore he did nothing.
24 At a bare minimum, the accused was at least put on inquiry that
25 crimes may have been committed by his subordinates, which obliged him to
Page 602
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 603
1 investigate further. Customary international law requires the Prosecution
2 to prove only that the accused "had reason to know" of the acts of his
3 subordinates. In relation to the deliberate sniping and shelling of
4 civilians, at paragraph 2.47 of the Defence pre-trial brief, he said "he
5 hadn't any knowledge of such events." And at paragraph 6.32, that he had
6 "never received even a single report on any individual incident, and that
7 he did not undertake an investigation regarding such an incident."
8 Your Honours, during those two years that he commanded the SRK,
9 the accused must have been the only person in the world who did not know
10 of credible allegations that the residents of Sarajevo were being
11 deliberately sniped and shelled on a daily basis from the hills
12 surrounding the city. The hills which he controlled. All the more
13 strange, when one considers evidence that he had a television in his
14 office in his forward command post at Lukavica barracks. All he had to do
15 was turn it on. One witness will tell you that in 1993, not surprisingly,
16 he saw a television running in the office of the accused's liaison
17 officer. It was tuned to CNN.
18 The powers of a Corps Commander of the Republika Srpska army as to
19 punishment are extensive. Expert testimony will identify the precise
20 scope and nature of the accused's responsibility in-theatre and will
21 pinpoint exactly what types of measures would have been within his
22 powers. These included the ability to remove offending persons from
23 front-line positions, to issue orders, to effect improvements with levels
24 of training, to amend Rules the Engagement, and to initiate disciplinary
25 measures. The accused admits in his pre-trial brief he did not undertake
Page 604
1 any such or similar measures in relation to any of the incidents detailed
2 in the schedules to the indictment, or others of a similar character.
3 Finally, Your Honours, I will show a short collage of video
4 clips. It takes approximately 8 minutes and 40 seconds, taken before and
5 during the indictment period, up to approximately spring of 1993. I do so
6 in order to demonstrate more vividly than words could some of the
7 anticipated evidence I have alluded to during my opening. On the video,
8 the state of the foliage and the clothing being worn by people indicates
9 the seasons and thus whether the footage was taken broadly in the summer
10 months of 1992, or after the accused assumed command of the SRK in early
11 September of that year. A brief explanatory note prefaces each segment.
12 It starts with footage of civilians attempting to avoid sniper
13 fire as they run across an intersection which was exposed to SRK
14 positions, early in the conflict. The second clip is of the same
15 intersection during the indictment period, by which time anti-sniping
16 barricades, in the form of shipping containers, had been placed on it.
17 Thereafter follows general footage of civilians attempting it avoid sniper
18 fire, sometimes unsuccessfully, and footage of civilians collecting water
19 and firewood, footage of the after math of three scheduled shelling
20 incidents and the burial of the dead in Dobrinja, in a plot of land
21 adjacent to a car park because do to so in a cemetery was unthinkable
22 given the campaign of shelling of funeral processions.
23 The video illustrates, in particular, the terror that was
24 communicated not just to those who were unable to dodge the sniper's
25 bullet or the shells, but to those who lived and witnesses what happened
Page 605
1 to their fellow Sarajevans. It conveys a sense as to how they were the
2 targets, even though they were not hit, of the intention to inflict
3 terror.
4 Thank you. Perhaps that video might be shown.
5 [Videotape played]
6 JUDGE ORIE: Do I understand, Mr. Ierace, that by showing us this
7 video you've concluded your opening statement?
8 MR. IERACE: Yes, Mr. President. That completes my opening.
9 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you very much.
10 Ms. Pilipovic, at this stage you're entitled to make your opening
11 statement pursuant to Rule 84, but as you know, you may also defer making
12 this statement until after the Prosecution has presented its case. What
13 is your wish to do at this moment?
14 MS. PILIPOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, the Defence relies on
15 Rule 84 and will make its opening statement upon the conclusion of the
16 Prosecution case.
17 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you very much. Ms. Pilipovic, does your client
18 wish to make a statement in accordance with Rule 84 bis of the Rules of
19 Procedure and Evidence at this moment?
20 MS. PILIPOVIC: [Interpretation] No, Your Honour, not at this
21 moment.
22 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you very much.
23 This means that we could proceed to the case presentation of the
24 Prosecutor to be continued. Mr. Ierace, are you ready for your first
25 witness? Although I do understand that we have to make a short break
Page 606
1 before we should come to that, because, as far as I understand, all these
2 boards have to be removed. But would you be ready to -- for your first
3 witness?
4 MR. IERACE: Yes, Mr. President.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Then I'll have a break of I think approximately
6 three, four, or five minutes, in order to have the courtroom prepared for
7 the first witness. Thank you.
8 --- Break taken at 4.42 p.m.
9 --- On resuming at 4.47 p.m.
10 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Ierace, after the Court being prepared, who will
11 you call as your first witness?
12 MR. IERACE: Mr. President, Mr. Michael Blaxill will appear for
13 the Prosecution in relation to our first witness, Mr. Kupusovic.
14 JUDGE ORIE: Would the usher, then, please bring in the first
15 witness.
16 MR. BLAXILL: For the record, Mr. President, Your Honours, good
17 afternoon. My name is Michael Blaxill. I shall be taking this witness in
18 chief for the Prosecution. And the witness's full name is Mr. Tarik
19 Kupusovic.
20 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Blaxill.
21 [The witness entered court]
22 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Kupusovic, can you hear me in a language that you
23 understand?
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I hear you very well, Your
25 Honour.
Page 607
1 JUDGE ORIE: Then I will invite you to make the solemn declaration
2 of which the text will be handed over to you.
3 WITNESS: TARIK KUPUSOVIC
4 [Witness answered through interpreter]
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak
6 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
7 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Kupusovic.
8 Mr. Blaxill, you may begin the examination of your witness.
9 MR. BLAXILL: I'm obliged, Your Honour. Thank you.
10 Examined by Mr. Blaxill:
11 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Kupusovic. Would you firstly for the record,
12 please, state your full name for the Court.
13 A. Good afternoon. My name is Tarik Kupusovic.
14 Q. And could you please give us your date of birth.
15 A. On the 5th of December, 1952.
16 Q. And where were you born, sir?
17 A. I was born in Sarajevo.
18 Q. And could you just give us a brief outline to the Court as to your
19 educational and professional background.
20 A. I am a civil engineer. I teach at the civil engineering faculty
21 in Sarajevo, and director of an engineering institute.
22 Q. And what was your profession back in 1992, let us say the
23 beginning of 1992?
24 A. By profession, I was professor at the university, but also on an
25 amateur basis I was a member of the Municipal Assembly of Sarajevo.
Page 608
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 609
1 Q. Sir, may I ask you at this stage, how long has your family lived
2 in Sarajevo?
3 A. More than 400 years.
4 Q. And you've mentioned your involvement in the municipality. When
5 did you first have such an involvement?
6 A. After the elections in 1990, I was elected to the town council,
7 and I was a member.
8 Q. And what basically were the functions of the town council within
9 the context of Sarajevo?
10 A. As in all other towns in the world, it is a body of local
11 self-government which dealt with public utilities and other needs of the
12 town of Sarajevo.
13 Q. And does the town of Sarajevo have any other authorities, such as
14 local municipalities?
15 A. Yes. The town of Sarajevo in those days consisted of ten
16 municipalities in those days.
17 Q. Could you please be so kind as to name the municipalities, and
18 just indicate whereabouts in Sarajevo, north, east, south, and west,
19 whereabouts they are.
20 A. Starting from the east, there are the municipalities of Pale,
21 Stari Grad, Centar, Novo Sarajevo, Novi Grad, Hadzici, Ilijas, Trnovo,
22 and Vogosca.
23 Q. And how many of those municipalities make up the actual urban part
24 of the city of Sarajevo?
25 A. The urban part consists of four municipalities.
Page 610
1 Q. And would you just name which four are those urban municipalities?
2 A. Yes. Stari Grad, Centar, Novo Sarajevo, and Novi Grad.
3 Q. Mr. Kupusovic, I'd like you, please, to tell the Judges a little
4 about Sarajevo in its pre-war condition and the pre-war lifestyle of the
5 city. Can you tell us firstly, please, something about the commercial
6 life of Sarajevo before the 1990s.
7 A. Sarajevo, as a town, dates back 500 years, when it was first
8 established at the crossroads of roads as a commercial centre. After the
9 Second World War, and especially after the winter Olympic games in 1984,
10 in addition to being the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, it also became a
11 cultural and economic centre of the former Yugoslavia. Four out of the
12 six largest civil engineering and consulting companies of the former
13 Yugoslavia were based in Sarajevo. In the music life, cultural life,
14 university life, and in many other aspects, Sarajevo was a prominent
15 centre independent of Belgrade and Zagreb, another of the main centres of
16 the former Yugoslavia, in which all its inhabitants lived in harmony,
17 regardless of their religious or ethnic affiliation.
18 Q. Thank you. To move to that, Mr. Kupusovic, how large was the
19 population of Sarajevo by, say, the year 1991 or 1992?
20 A. Half a million inhabitants.
21 Q. And can you tell us which or what ethnic groups might have
22 composed that population?
23 A. About 40 per cent of the population was Muslim, about 32 per cent
24 Serbs, and 8 per cent Croats, and the rest mixed marriages and people who
25 declared themselves as Yugoslavs, people who considered themselves to be
Page 611
1 citizens of Yugoslavia or members of other ethnic groups constituted the
2 rest.
3 Q. And can you describe in a little more detail the relationships
4 that there were between the ethnic groups within the city.
5 A. I've already said that relationships were harmonious; in fact,
6 there wasn't any part of town or any institution or any company which was
7 dominated by members of only one ethnic group. Simply, citizens
8 considered themselves fellow citizens, and the small differences that
9 existed in religious terms were not an obstacle. They exchanged visits
10 for religious holidays, such as Bajram, family celebrations, and other
11 festivities. So as a citizen of Sarajevo, I can assert that it was the
12 most cosmopolitan town in the former Yugoslavia.
13 Q. And what about the relationships between the members of the city
14 council at the political level, say towards the latter part of 1990 and
15 into 1991?
16 A. In the city council or city parliament, there were 120 elected
17 deputies or members, and they belonged to different parties. There were
18 seven parties who had won enough votes to be represented in the
19 parliament, and relationships were very good. As members of the town
20 assembly, we sought to develop a new multiparty spirit. For instance, the
21 option of social democracy, liberalism, the greens, all the various
22 options, regardless of the three national parties, which also had their
23 representatives in the assembly, but not one of them had a majority. The
24 party I belonged to had the largest number of deputies, that is, the SDA,
25 which had 30 or 32 per cent of seats.
Page 612
1 Q. When you refer to three national parties, what precisely do you
2 mean? Does that have any reference to ethnic groups at all?
3 A. Yes. Most of the members, or one could even say almost all the
4 members of the Serbian Democratic Party were Serbs. Of the Croatian
5 Democratic Union were Croats, and also the majority of members of the
6 Party of Democratic Action were Muslims or Bosniaks. The other parties
7 were definitely multi-ethnic. Not a single ethnic group dominated in
8 those parties.
9 Q. Mr. Kupusovic, were any of these political parties known simply by
10 a set of initials? And if so, could you tell us which of these parties
11 may have been known just by their initials?
12 A. Yes. All the parties had their initials. The three most
13 important ones were the SDA, that is, the Party of Democratic Action; the
14 HDZ, the Croatian Democratic Union; and the SDS, the Serbian Democratic
15 Party, headed by Radovan Karadzic.
16 Q. Thank you. Now, in your political career, did you continue in
17 public office after and throughout the 1990s, up to, say, 1994, 1995?
18 A. Yes. I was a member of the town assembly from the elections in
19 1990 up to 1994, when I was elected town mayor of Sarajevo, and I
20 performed those duties until 1996.
21 Q. Thank you. Mr. Kupusovic, just as to the pre-war situation in
22 Sarajevo, were there any particular features of the city that aroused
23 particular affection or sentiment amongst its people, anything they were
24 especially proud of?
25 A. All the inhabitants of Sarajevo were then, and still are, proud in
Page 613
1 particular of the old town centre, where, in an area of 400 metres you
2 have the Orthodox church, the Gasi Husref Bey mosque, the largest mosque
3 in the Balkans, then the Catholic cathedral and the old Jewish synagogue.
4 In addition, the people of Sarajevo are particularly proud of the
5 facilities that were built just before the Olympic Games, which
6 transformed a town that developed in the 1950s and 1960s under socialism
7 and communism into a
8 modern European city. Thanks to those buildings, and also thanks to a new
9 infrastructure, water supply, electricity, gas supply, the facilities that
10 were built in the 1980s sponsored by the need for the Olympic Games.
11 Q. You just mentioned as well, what was the system, the public
12 transport system in the city at that time?
13 A. In those days, in addition to the trams, which date back to the
14 nineteenth century, the first trams, in fact, that were introduced in the
15 Austro-Hungarian monarchy, trolley buses were introduced, and of course
16 there were buses for transport all over town, so that the city transport
17 system functioned extremely well from the Olympics right through until
18 1992.
19 Q. Thank you. Mr. Kupusovic, whereabouts were you living in 1992,
20 the beginning of the year?
21 A. I was living in the district called Dobrinja, which is close to
22 the Sarajevo airport.
23 Q. Had you always lived in that district?
24 A. No. It's a housing settlement built for the needs of the athletes
25 and journalists for the Olympic Games, and I moved into a new apartment
Page 614
1 there in 1983.
2 Q. And so where were you in fact living at the beginning of April of
3 1992? In Dobrinja?
4 A. Yes, in Dobrinja, very close to Sarajevo's airport.
5 Q. Mr. Kupusovic, what effect did any events in the former Yugoslavia
6 have on the minds and daily life of the people in Sarajevo towards the end
7 of 1991?
8 A. When the crisis started of the break-up of the structures of the
9 former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, first with Slovenia,
10 followed by Croatia, the vast majority of people in Bosnia-Herzegovina and
11 the very large majority of the people of Sarajevo believed that a peaceful
12 solution would be found after all to that crisis and that the war from
13 Croatia would not spread to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Sarajevo itself. In
14 fact, on January 1st, 1992, a peace agreement was signed in Sarajevo
15 between the rump Yugoslavia and Croatia whereby that stage of the war in
16 Croatia, when Vukovar, Dubrovnik, and other towns were particularly badly
17 damaged, ended. We believed that nothing like that could ever happen to
18 Bosnia-Herzegovina, and especially not in Sarajevo, in which, before and
19 even after that, the people were absolutely in favour of peace and a
20 peaceful settlement of the crisis rather than what happened.
21 Q. And faced with that situation, did anything change as regards
22 those amicable relations in the early months of 1992?
23 A. It didn't change a lot, but nevertheless, after the referendum
24 that took place on the 29th of February and the 1st of March, 1992, at
25 which the citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina had to declare whether they
Page 615
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 616
1 wished to remain within the rump Yugoslavia, that is, together with
2 Serbia, or whether they wanted to have an independent Bosnia-Herzegovina,
3 some members of the SDS set up the first checkpoints in Sarajevo to
4 demonstrate their rejection of the results of the referendum which later
5 on resulted in the recognition and the actual independence of
6 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
7 Later, when Bosnia-Herzegovina was officially recognised by the
8 European union, there were fresh barricades in the night between the 5th
9 and 6th of April, but our colleague deputies in the town assembly, that
10 is, colleagues, members on behalf of the SDS, claimed that they had
11 nothing to do with it, that they were not involved and that this was being
12 done by groups that were out of control.
13 Q. Did you manage to ascertain what the purpose of these barricades
14 was?
15 A. The purpose of the barricades, according to what the president and
16 vice-president of the SDS were saying, was to express their disagreement,
17 that is, the disagreement of the SDS as a party, but at the level of the
18 whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina, with the results of that referendum. So that
19 as these barricades lasted -- were up for a few hours, that is, a
20 limitation on freedom of movement, there were occasional shootings, but
21 all we could do was guess as to what the purpose was, as a kind of test,
22 an exercise on the part of the people who were prepared to engage in such
23 activities.
24 Q. And what was the mood of the population at large when these events
25 were going on?
Page 617
1 A. The reaction of the population was to organise peaceful actions to
2 remove the barricades, and that is what happened. For the first time in
3 March, and a second time in April, when large crowds of people consisting
4 of men, women, and children, headed towards those barricades, and the
5 people who were camouflaged with caps and socks over their faces who were
6 manning those barricades, were removed. Similarly, on the 5th of April,
7 an enormous mass of people from all over Bosnia came to Sarajevo to
8 demonstrate peacefully against those who had put up those barricades, and
9 to urge them to remove them, which indeed happened, of course with some
10 sporadic shooting.
11 Q. Now, Mr. Kupusovic, had there been any form of military stationed
12 in or situated in Sarajevo prior to the war?
13 A. Before the war in Sarajevo, the Yugoslav People's Army had several
14 barracks in the town itself and several facilities in the environs of the
15 town. The only military in Sarajevo was the JNA.
16 Q. And can you say where precisely they were located in Sarajevo?
17 A. The largest barracks was the Marsal Tito barracks in the very
18 centre of town. It is a very large compound in area, and in the old part
19 of town and in new districts, there were several smaller barracks and
20 facilities for the training of soldiers.
21 Q. And generally, what were the activities of the JNA soldiers in the
22 city prior to the war?
23 A. When the JNA withdrew from Croatia and Slovenia, much of the
24 troops and armaments arrived in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and much of that in
25 Sarajevo. And the number of patrols increased considerably. They were
Page 618
1 passing through town in APCs and in other vehicles, which had an adverse
2 effect on the citizens, and they saw it as a demonstration of military
3 might.
4 Q. If I could just stop you there at that point. What were the
5 activities, then, prior to that sort of period on the part of the JNA. I
6 mean, did they -- how much did you see of them in the town and what sort
7 of activities did they have in peacetime?
8 A. Before the 1990s, for instance, the military was in town and
9 around town, but relations were fine. There were local, amateur,
10 cultural, and arts societies, together with the soldiers. The soldiers
11 would go out when they were on leave, to go to coffee shops and various
12 cultural institutions, and relations were quite amicable between the
13 soldiers and the citizens.
14 Q. And so generally, what indeed was the attitude of the people
15 towards the JNA and the purpose that the JNA were serving?
16 A. The attitude towards the JNA before the war in Croatia was
17 extremely favourable. After the war, in Slovenia and Croatia, this
18 attitude became more neutral. Yes, they are our army, but because of
19 certain actions which did not meet with approval, it had become to
20 Serbianised, as we used to say, because too many Slovenes and Croats had
21 left the army, so that it was no longer the army of all the peoples of
22 Yugoslavia, but still it was considered to be a neutral force which would
23 protect the constitutional order and peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
24 Q. Thank you. You mentioned a few minutes ago that you saw, after
25 the events of the trouble in Croatia, that the JNA increased in numbers of
Page 619
1 men and weapons in the vicinity of Sarajevo. Could you tell us a little
2 bit more, please, about what you witnessed as to the return of these JNA
3 troops into the city.
4 A. It was common knowledge that the number of soldiers and that large
5 numbers of soldiers and weapons were moved from Croatia to Bosnia and
6 Herzegovina, and in Sarajevo we saw images on television of increased
7 activity by the JNA around Sarajevo. JNA commanders said these were
8 regular activities to protect the town. Some citizens believed this, but
9 others expressed fear. They said, "Who is the JNA protecting us from by
10 setting up guns and other weapons around Sarajevo?" I myself, because I
11 lived in Dobrinja, and there was a crossroads leading to Trebevic from my
12 house, and I saw that that part of the road was closed off for civilians
13 and that personnel carriers, tanks, and guns had been set up on the
14 Mojmilo tank, which was on the other side of Dobrinja, in the direction
15 of town, so that soldiers were everywhere, and one did not really
16 understand who they were protecting the citizens from.
17 Q. You made reference to Mojmilo tank. Can you explain, please, to
18 the Court the place you're actually referring to. What is Mojmilo tank?
19 A. The Mojmilo reservoir is the biggest water reservoir in Sarajevo,
20 into which water is pumped and then redistributed to smaller pumping
21 stations for the water supply of the town. This is on a hill overlooking
22 the airport, the new part of town, and Dobrinja, which is close to the
23 airport.
24 Q. And when you say that guns had been set up on that location, can
25 you give us a description of what type of guns they appeared to be?
Page 620
1 A. No. I'm not an expert on this. They were guns with long barrels,
2 but I can't say anything more about them.
3 Q. Thank you. That's fine. So you were referring to the other
4 events that had been occurring around the beginning of April. Was there
5 any particularly significant event on the 6th of April of 1992 in
6 Sarajevo?
7 A. Well, the 6th of April is the day of liberation of Sarajevo from
8 World War II, and it was always celebrated as a holiday in the town. And
9 there was to be a ceremonial session of the city assembly, which was not
10 held, because in the night from the 5th to 6th of April, barricades were
11 set up, and only some of the people were able to make their way to the
12 assembly. I arrived in a taxi at a barricade, then crossed on foot, took
13 another taxi to the next barricade, and that's how I managed to get
14 through to the assembly. I didn't have any special problems except that I
15 couldn't use my own car or public transport. The barricades were manned
16 by masked people, and their role was unclear.
17 Q. You say they were masked people. Was there any other way that you
18 might have identified who they were or who they represented?
19 A. No. They had socks over their heads and they were not wearing
20 military uniforms, so they didn't look like soldiers or policemen. They
21 were armed and that they were manning the barricade. But they were not
22 preventing people from passing by the barricade on foot, but you couldn't
23 pass through in a vehicle. We knew, however, that they were members of
24 the SDS because on television we saw negotiations between President
25 Izetbegovic and Karadzic, the president of the Serbian party, on the
Page 621
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 622
1 removal of the barricades, and the mediator was a representative of the UN
2 in Sarajevo. And this is what happened, actually. On the following day
3 the barricades were removed and peace was negotiated, and it was said that
4 barricades would no longer be erected.
5 Q. So after that incident and the barricades were removed, what was
6 the position in the city? What was the situation?
7 A. Throughout April, the situation was tense. At a high level in the
8 police, efforts were needed find a solution, but there was sporadic
9 shooting in town. There were incidents which instilled fear and made
10 people afraid. However, everything continued to function. Public
11 transport, utilities, people went to work. And our slogan was that by
12 working, we were fighting for peace, because this was the way to prevent a
13 possible war.
14 Q. You have referred to a number of incidents and shootings. Can you
15 give the Chamber any facts relating to any of these incidents?
16 A. When the peace rally was held, in front of the assembly of the
17 socialist Republic, or rather, the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as
18 it was already called, and the Executive Council, that is, the government
19 of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the rally was broken up by shots coming from the
20 Holiday Inn, a nearby hotel, and several people were wounded. Later on,
21 when the peace demonstrators set out towards the police school, that was
22 where the first civilian casualty occurred, on the bridge on the other
23 side of the assembly, leading to the part of town where the police school
24 is. Throughout the month there were a few peaceful days, followed by days
25 when there was sporadic shooting from the smaller barracks around town,
Page 623
1 and the shooting was actually done by people who were unknown to us.
2 Q. Now, that first instance of the first civilian casualty shot on a
3 bridge, can you give us any more details about that? Do you know anything
4 about the identity of that person?
5 A. Yes. It was a female student in Sarajevo who came from
6 Dubrovnik. She was studying in Sarajevo. Her name was Suada Omerovic,
7 she was the first victim of the war in Sarajevo, so the bridge is today
8 named after her.
9 Q. So did that event therefore have a strong significance in the mind
10 of the people at that time?
11 A. It did. She was a young girl studying in Sarajevo who wanted
12 peace, and in a way, people felt obliged by her death. They saw that more
13 such casualties could happen if people did not leave off weapons and try
14 to find peaceful solutions for the misunderstandings in the former
15 Yugoslavia.
16 Q. And did anyone ascertain or find out how she came to be shot,
17 where the shot came from or who did the shooting?
18 A. The police established that the shots were fired by the bodyguards
19 of Radovan Karadzic. That's what was published in the newspapers. I of
20 course have no personal knowledge of this.
21 Q. Of course. Did you have any knowledge as to the whereabouts of
22 those bodyguards of Dr. Karadzic at the time of the shooting? Where were
23 they? Did you know that?
24 A. They were on two floors of the Holiday Inn hotel, and in other
25 nearby buildings. But this is where the SDS headquarters was. After the
Page 624
1 rallies and after this event, they moved to Pale.
2 Q. And so after that particular event on the 6th of April, how did
3 things progress in the city in terms of the atmosphere and the general air
4 of whether it was calm or tensions rising?
5 A. The tensions mounted because many more soldiers were moving in and
6 around town, and the citizens tried to carry on with their normal lives
7 and to oppose the militarisation of the town and the military activities
8 in this way. They felt that all this was pointless and that it only
9 increased the danger of new incidents. There were incidents throughout
10 April: Shootings, woundings, and other events where people were killed.
11 Q. And what were the JNA troops in the city of Sarajevo doing while
12 these incidents were going on? In fact, were they involved in any of
13 them?
14 A. The JNA forces played the role of a neutral mediator, separating,
15 as they said, the opposing sides. But there were no opposing sides. In
16 fact, there was only the SDS, the guards, the lads who were the SDS
17 militia, and then there were the JNA soldiers. There were also groups of
18 young men in Sarajevo, citizens patrolling the streets without any
19 weapons, patrolling the streets and the entrances to residential
20 buildings, to watch out for crime, for drunken soldiers, and reserve
21 soldiers who committed crimes around town. So tensions mounted, and at a
22 higher political level, they kept changing ideas about how to preserve
23 Yugoslavia peacefully or else how to make a new political agreement in
24 order for the whole territory of the former Yugoslavia to develop into a
25 peaceful community of federal states or confederation.
Page 625
1 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Blaxill, I'm intending to have a short break of
2 approximately 20 minutes. Would this be a proper moment to start this
3 break, or --
4 MR. BLAXILL: As convenient as any, Your Honour. Yes, indeed.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Then we'll have a short break and we'll resume at 10
6 minutes to 6.00.
7 --- Recess taken at 5.31 p.m.
8 --- On resuming at 5.52 p.m.
9 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Blaxill, could you please proceed. First, of
10 course, we need the witness to be brought into the courtroom.
11 MR. BLAXILL: Indeed, Your Honour, yes. As soon as he's in court,
12 I will of course proceed.
13 JUDGE ORIE: Could the usher please -- is he there or ...
14 [The witness entered court]
15 MR. BLAXILL:
16 Q. Mr. Kupusovic, just before the break we were talking a little
17 about the activities of the JNA at that time, at the beginning of April,
18 but can you tell us something about events in and around Sarajevo airport
19 that might have occurred shortly before then?
20 A. The Yugoslav People's Army took over control of the airport from
21 the civil administration of the airport, and already in March and April it
22 had full control of the airport and all the air traffic at the airport.
23 Q. Did the air traffic at the airport include still civil traffic or
24 was it exclusively military at that time?
25 A. There was a very pronounced military traffic. As I lived nearby,
Page 626
1 I saw planes landing and taking off. But there were also civilian
2 airplanes landing.
3 Q. So as we progress through the month of April after these
4 particular events, particularly around the 6th, can you tell us sort of
5 how events went in the city as that month went on?
6 A. I don't know what exactly you mean. I have already spoken about
7 the heightening tensions and the efforts of citizens to maintain normalcy
8 of life in town.
9 Q. Probably my fault. I don't think it was a very precise question.
10 I'll ask you something more precise and more on the point. Was there any
11 time after that that the JNA became more militarily involved with any
12 groups or other people with some sort of conflict in the city during
13 April?
14 A. There were quite a number of what the JNA commanders called
15 exercises by the JNA, in town and around town, which provoked fear among
16 the population and an increase in tension.
17 Q. Was there any time at which the JNA became involved in actual
18 shooting incidents with anybody?
19 A. There were shooting incidents, as I have already mentioned, but I
20 did not know, nor did other people know, who was doing the shooting. I,
21 for instance, remember a statement by General Kukanjac, who was commander
22 of the garrison, or the area of Sarajevo, that when citizens were saying
23 that it was the JNA that were shooting, he said that the JNA was a force
24 that would not trample on an ant, that it would maintain the peace. But
25 there were constant exercises and movements by the military and a
Page 627
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 628
1 heightening of tensions.
2 Q. Was there ever a time at which there was an open confrontation
3 between people in the vicinity of the Tito barracks during the month of
4 April?
5 A. There were some incidents. From the barracks outside, but it
6 could not really be called a confrontation. It was simply a mirroring of
7 events that took place in Capljina and Mostar, where there were even more
8 troops than in Sarajevo, relatively speaking.
9 Q. And at that time, how had relations developed between the
10 delegates within your city assembly? Was it still as harmoniously
11 conducted, as you have previously described, or was there a change?
12 A. There were no particular changes. We would meet. In those days I
13 was already president of the deputy club of my party, and those presidents
14 met in an effort to ease tension and to preserve the functions of the
15 city. And the president of the SDS deputy club also took part in those
16 meetings. His name was Bozo Popara, and of course the president of the
17 SDS was Karadzic, but Popara was president of the SDS for the town of
18 Sarajevo.
19 Q. Now, in terms of -- you've described obviously how tensions had
20 heightened and there were problems. Had there been any kind of shift or
21 change in the population or any movement of population by this point, in
22 April?
23 A. Yes. A part of the population, maybe a couple of thousand, in
24 March and April, left on JNA planes and in other they left the town.
25 These were mostly family members of JNA officers who were serving in town,
Page 629
1 who were living in town, but also other citizens.
2 Q. And was there any particular ethnic group that saw more of its
3 citizens leaving Sarajevo than others?
4 A. Maybe, as the officers were mostly Serbs, so maybe there were more
5 Serbs who were leaving the town, but others were leaving too, Croats and
6 Muslims. They were sending their wives and small children. Some were
7 either to the Adriatic coast or to some other destination, believing they
8 would stay there for a month or two, until the situation calmed down.
9 That was what everyone told me who had sent their families either to the
10 Adriatic, to Croatia, or to Germany. That's what they said.
11 Q. Now, at about that time, let us say mid-April, was there any
12 particular action that was taken by the city assembly perhaps on or about
13 the 19th of April?
14 A. As the assembly could not meet on the 6th of April because of the
15 barricades, which we have discussed, then a limited number of people, the
16 leaders of the parties who had deputies in the city assembly, met in an
17 effort to find a solution for the city itself to ensure peace and further
18 development. On the 17th of April, a statement was signed which was made
19 public in the local newspapers by the presidents of the deputy clubs, to
20 the effect that we wished to preserve the assets of Sarajevo.
21 Q. May I just interrupt you there, sir? I apologise. I do have a
22 document I would like to have shown to this witness at this stage?
23 MR. BLAXILL: Does the usher have the document to present to him?
24 JUDGE ORIE: This gives me opportunity, Mr. Blaxill, perhaps to
25 make a proposal as far as tendering of exhibits in evidence is concerned.
Page 630
1 MR. BLAXILL: I'm sorry to interrupt, Your Honour, but I don't
2 propose to tender this as an exhibit. The reality is that this is a
3 document of a very brief nature and is germane really to the main text of
4 the witness's evidence. I was proposing to invite him to read it into the
5 record of the transcript and not, in fact, tender the document. That
6 being said, it has been prepared as an aid to Your Honours and to my
7 learned friends, and indeed has been translated into both English and
8 French to assist in that purpose.
9 JUDGE ORIE: You have received a copy, Ms. Pilipovic or
10 Mr. Piletta-Zanin?
11 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] I think that we haven't
12 received that document, Mr. President, but I think last time we wanted to
13 focus in particular on translation problems. And I would like to take
14 advantage of this opportunity to say that when the witness said "a little
15 more," and I didn't see that reflected in the transcript. So we're going
16 to have these problems, and how should we react when a statement made in
17 one language doesn't appear in an exact translation in another language?
18 I'm not quite sure what we are referring to, so I can't say regarding this
19 document.
20 JUDGE ORIE: I would concentrate rather than on this document at
21 this moment, and perhaps if there are any problems as far as corrections
22 to the translations are concerned, we'll deal with that at a later stage
23 and to find a way to solve that problem as far as we can. But as regards
24 this document, I do understand that we haven't had a copy, the Defence
25 hasn't had a copy, but we get it now.
Page 631
1 MR. BLAXILL: In point of fact, Your Honour, that is not quite
2 so. We have copies for distribution that were tendered this morning, and
3 my learned friend in fact received it on the 26th of November. It was
4 handed to Madam Pilipovic by a colleague of mine, as I understand.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Blaxill, I have to apologise. Shortly before
6 this Court hearing started, I was provided with a copy, and you've got a
7 copy as well? I see it's a document which says in English "statement made
8 by a representative." That's the document you're referring to.
9 MR. BLAXILL: That's precisely so, Your Honour.
10 JUDGE ORIE: Defence has got a copy as well? Okay.
11 MR. BLAXILL: Sorry, Your Honour. Just as an observation, Your
12 Honour, I think you'll find any comments about translation will be
13 resolved, because as you read it into the record, our interpreters here
14 will be translating formally to the Court in both French and English.
15 Could the document be handed to the witness.
16 Q. Mr. Kupusovic, could you look at that document, and do you
17 recognise it? Can you say what it is?
18 A. Yes, that is the document that was published in the local
19 newspapers, a statement by representatives of parliamentary parties in the
20 city assembly of Sarajevo.
21 Q. Could you read the contents of that document into the Court,
22 please.
23 A. Of course, the document is headed "The town is indivisible."
24 [As interpreted] "At a meeting in the assembly of the town of
25 Sarajevo held on the 19th of April, 1992, in the work of which
Page 632
1 representatives of all parliamentary parties whose deputies constitute the
2 town assembly participated, and it was chaired by the president of the
3 City Assembly, Muhamed Kresevljakovic, a joint statement was adopted and
4 signed:
5 "On behalf of the citizens of Sarajevo, no one from the town or
6 the Republic," and the implication is to Bosnia and Herzegovina, "or
7 Europe has the right to negotiate any divisions of Sarajevo.
8 "The town of Sarajevo, with a history of more than 500 years long
9 of joint life as a multicultural, multi-confessional and multi-ethnic
10 community, is indivisible.
11 "In the town of Sarajevo, we are defended a modern European civil
12 concept of life.
13 "Sarajevo is the capital of the Republic of Bosnia and
14 Herzegovina, and all human rights and freedoms are respected in it, due to
15 which we hereby state that no one has the right to jeopardise the lives of
16 people, peace, and the material property of citizens and the cultural and
17 historical and natural heritage of Sarajevo."
18 The signatories are Miodrag Jankovic, the Alliance of Reformist
19 Forces, a party; Bozidar Popara, the Serbian Democratic Party; Tarik
20 Kupusovic, the Party of Democratic Action, or the SDA; Anto Zelic, the
21 Croatian Democratic Union, the HDZ; Slobodan Primorac, the SDP, the
22 Socialist Democratic Party; Esad Afgan, the MBO, the Muslim Bosniak
23 Organisation; Nijaz Nurkovic, Liberals; Ibrahim Spahic, DSS, the
24 Democratic Party of Socialists; and Muhamed Kresevljakovic, the town mayor
25 of Sarajevo.
Page 633
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 634
1 So all the presidents of the urban part of the party signed,
2 including the SDS, Bozidar Popara, and I who at the time was the president
3 of the SDA club of deputies.
4 MR. BLAXILL: There is just one issue of translation at this
5 point, Your Honours, although it's probably of little significance, but
6 the Alliance of Reformist Forces has been referred to as the party of
7 Miodrag Jankovic, but I had a translation of the Serbian Radical Party.
8 Would that be the same thing or is that an error?
9 A. The Alliance of Reformist Forces, a party that came into effect a
10 year or 18 months before this time we are referring to.
11 Q. In which alphabet is that notice prepared, and in which alphabet
12 was it published, Mr. Kupusovic?
13 A. In Cyrillic script.
14 Q. Is there any significance to your having had it published in
15 Cyrillic script?
16 A. No. The newspapers would be published one day in Cyrillic and one
17 day in Latin script, or some newspapers in Latin, some in Cyrillic. So we
18 had the technical facilities to publish in both scripts, and the emphasis
19 was on the equality of scripts in Bosnia-Herzegovina, so that both scripts
20 were in use, both the Cyrillic and the Latin. So just it happens to be a
21 coincidence that it was published in Cyrillic.
22 Q. Now, we've talked about the incidents and incidents of violence
23 that occurred in April. Was there a time when that changed and the
24 situation became rather predominantly more violent, there were greater
25 incidents and shooting?
Page 635
1 A. In April, the situation was under constant tension, and on the 2nd
2 of May, of course, the situation exploded.
3 Q. Can you tell us, please, what actually happened to explain what
4 you mean by "the situation exploded."
5 A. A column of APCs and tanks was heading towards the Presidency of
6 Bosnia-Herzegovina. At the same time, the army centre in downtown
7 Sarajevo, close to the Presidency building, was being evacuated, and there
8 was shooting, an explosion, as I said, which provoked setting light to
9 trams, killings, and it was then, in fact, that the war really started in
10 Sarajevo, this lengthy apathy of life in town under those circumstances.
11 Q. Can you tell us, please, Mr. Kupusovic, whose column of APCs and
12 tanks were these? Who was using them?
13 A. The Yugoslav People's Army.
14 Q. And they were heading, you say, for the Presidency. Where did
15 they actually end up?
16 A. They were stopped at the bridge in front of the town assembly,
17 which is right close to the Presidency building, and they were stopped, in
18 fact, by the guards of the Presidency and the town assembly, that is,
19 units of the regular police, so that fighting occurred. The assumption
20 was, of course, since negotiations were underway at the same time in
21 Lisbon on the implementation of the results of the referendum, that that
22 was in fact an attempted coup d'etat.
23 Q. And after these APCs were stopped, what happened? Did they remain
24 there? Did they withdraw? What happened to that armoured column?
25 A. Several were destroyed, and the others withdrew. But at the same
Page 636
1 time several trams were set on fire, several cars and shooting occurred in
2 town and that marked the beginning of the war conflict in Sarajevo.
3 Q. And can you say, sir, who were the other people involved in these
4 incidents you refer to as unrest and riots? Were there any particular
5 groups involved?
6 A. Apart from police units and units of the reserve police units who
7 were actually protecting the Presidency building as a symbol of the
8 sovereignty of Bosnia and Hercegovina, there were several groups of
9 self-organised young men who were assisting them. These groups called
10 themselves Bosna.
11 Q. And could you -- you say there were groups calling themselves
12 Bosna, did they represent any particular political party or any particular
13 ethnic group?
14 A. No they were young men from Sarajevo who felt that there was
15 impending trouble and there were several hundred of them, several groups
16 who were assisting the police in maintaining the law and order and
17 civility in Sarajevo in March and April, but they were in civilian
18 clothes. They were just citizens acting together with the reserve police.
19 Q. So what happened after those particular incidents? What then
20 happened in the city?
21 A. After that the town was exposed to very heavy shelling. A couple
22 of days later the Bascarsija was set alight, the national and university
23 libraries, the railway station, the post office and many key buildings in
24 town were heavily shelled and destroyed.
25 Q. Do you know the date or the approximate date that that shelling
Page 637
1 began?
2 A. This started already on the 2nd or 3rd of May and went on for
3 several weeks, with interruptions, of course, went every day or every
4 other day we experienced shocks. Zetar [phoen] was destroyed, the Olympic
5 Sports Hall, that the railway station had gone, that many apartments
6 buildings had burned or several floors of those buildings and several
7 apartments, and this went on during the following weeks and months.
8 Q. I'd like to ask you just a little more closely about that. When
9 the first shells landed upon the city, can you say the areas in which they
10 landed? Were they specific areas, or what was the situation?
11 A. The buildings that I mentioned are scattered all over town, so one
12 could not identify a particular part of town being targeted, except for
13 the buildings themselves, that were symbols of the town and were essential
14 for its functioning, like the post office, the railway stations, the Zetar
15 sports hall, and similar such facilities.
16 Q. To your recollection, at that time, were those buildings the only
17 ones that received shell hits, or were there others?
18 A. In those days, several apartment buildings were destroyed, many
19 high-rises had apartments burning. The part of town where I had lived
20 until then, Dobrinja, right close to the airport, where the JNA was, half
21 of those apartments were set alight at the very beginning, and I found
22 that out from a neighbour who happened to be there. Whereas when these
23 things were happening on the 2nd of May, I happened to be in the centre of
24 town, staying at my wife's parents' house. Twenty days later, the
25 telephone lines were cut because the post office was set alight, so you
Page 638
1 could not use the phone any more.
2 Q. You said, Mr. Kupusovic, that you lived in Dobrinja at that time.
3 Were you able to make a return to your home?
4 A. No. About a quarter past 11.00, when this fighting around the
5 Presidency started, I happened to be in the street, and when I heard the
6 shooting, I was with my children, so I went back to my in-laws' place, and
7 in instead of going to -- by tram to Dobrinja, where we were planning to
8 go, the tram stopped and we spent the following two and a half months in
9 that apartment with my in-laws, because we couldn't go to Dobrinja any
10 more. And when we called up our next-door neighbour in Dobrinja, we
11 learnt from her that we had nowhere to go, because the apartment had been
12 set on fire, and there was also no transportation. Everything was under
13 blockade. It was not possible to move around town. And from the Marsal
14 Tito barracks, which was on the way, there was shooting going from the
15 barracks in all directions.
16 Q. Who was occupying the Marsal Tito barracks at that time?
17 A. The Yugoslav People's Army.
18 Q. And when you refer to shooting, can you tell the kind of shooting
19 it was in terms of the weapons? Was this small firearms or was it big
20 guns type shooting from the barracks?
21 A. From the barracks there was side arms, rifle fire, and also the
22 so-called Zolja, the hand-held rocket launchers for armoured vehicles, but
23 they were also used to destroy apartments.
24 Q. And can you say the kind of areas that came under fire from the
25 Tito barracks when that shooting started?
Page 639
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 640
1 A. All parts of town were targeted, which could be reached from the
2 barracks. So there was shooting in all four directions.
3 Q. What effects did this shooting from the Tito barracks have upon
4 the ability of the civilian population to function within Sarajevo?
5 A. As I said, the barracks is in the centre of town. It is a large
6 compound. And due to this fire coming from the barracks, these two parts
7 of town -- there was no communication between the two parts of town on
8 each side of the barracks.
9 Q. When you say "on each side of the barracks," are you talking of
10 north to south or east to west?
11 A. All four sides: East/west and north/south. Because the two main
12 roads are on each side of the barracks. They couldn't be used. And also,
13 north south, the north/south direction could not be used because of the
14 shooting coming from the barracks.
15 Q. Were there any people hit by that shooting that was coming from
16 the barracks?
17 A. Yes. The television was still operational. There was
18 electricity, and we repeatedly saw images or news reports about killings
19 or wounding of children, women, or men who happened to be in the line of
20 fire of people, I suppose, soldiers, in the barracks who were doing the
21 shooting.
22 Q. And can you say again: How long did it go on that there was this
23 shooting from Tito barracks out into the streets of Sarajevo?
24 A. This went on for several weeks, until the point in time when it
25 was agreed at the negotiations that the JNA should move to Serbia, that
Page 641
1 is, what was left of Yugoslavia, when the barracks was evacuated. So that
2 would be about a month and a half later.
3 Q. Was there any form or group of people who were actually opposing
4 the JNA, fighting with them at that time?
5 A. In the former republics, the socialist republics of the former
6 Yugoslavia, there was the Territorial Defence as a local organisation,
7 that is, of the Republic, and already at the beginning of May, I think
8 officially in mid-May, it was mobilised. And together with the reserve
9 police force and the police force and the self-organised groups of young
10 men, who all later became the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, members of that
11 army, those were in fact the force that opposed and that sought to
12 preserve the town and protect the citizens from these attacks.
13 Q. And during that time, while the JNA was in those barracks and this
14 fighting was going on, what about the shelling of the city? Was that
15 continuing?
16 A. Throughout that time, the city was shelled, mostly from positions
17 around Sarajevo, but also from these barracks which were still under JNA
18 control in the city itself.
19 Q. And did any -- to your recollection, did any shells hit the JNA
20 barracks while they were there, at that time?
21 A. I don't know that any shell hit the barracks, but those young men
22 in the police didn't have the weapons with which to shell. There were no
23 heavy weapons on their side.
24 Q. Do you recall whether any of the shells coming in from the outside
25 of the city hit the Tito barracks at that time while the JNA were there?
Page 642
1 A. That was the same army, both outside town and in the barracks.
2 Q. Did you in fact personally see the Tito barracks buildings during
3 this period, or did you not go near that particular area?
4 A. I didn't go to the immediate vicinity of the barracks because it
5 was impossible to reach it, but the apartment which was behind the Holiday
6 Inn hotel, we could see the walls of the barracks, compound. It can be
7 seen virtually from any part of town, because it is a very large compound
8 of buildings, a complex of buildings.
9 Q. And so from those observations that you were able to make at the
10 time, if you just think back, Mr. Kupusovic, do you recall seeing any
11 noticeable damage to those barracks during that period, while the JNA were
12 there in May?
13 A. No, I didn't see anything.
14 Q. Now, what had happened at this time to your city assembly, now
15 that you had these conditions in which to try and function?
16 A. The city assembly had been unable to meet since April, so we did
17 not have a quorum and were unable to make decisions. Under the
18 legislation that was then in force, the Presidency of the town took over
19 the functions of the city assembly, and it is these signatures here that
20 it consisted of: The mayor, the deputy mayor, and the commander of the
21 civil defence, and the chief of the town police. It started operating in
22 June, because in May it was still not possible to move around. The
23 situation was totally unsafe. And from early June until January or
24 February 1994, the Presidency of the town took on the functions of the
25 town assembly as the highest authority of civilian government in the town.
Page 643
1 Q. Yes. I will at some future point be asking you a bit more about
2 that, Mr. Kupusovic, but at the moment: Were you in fact a member of that
3 body, the Presidency?
4 A. Yes, I was.
5 Q. Thank you. So after we have this change in civilian
6 administration, you have made reference, I believe, to a time when the JNA
7 left the Tito barracks. Could you just describe briefly the circumstances
8 that led to that and where they went?
9 A. When Bosnia and Herzegovina became a member of the UN as a
10 sovereign state, negotiations were held by people at higher political
11 levels, and it was agreed that the JNA should move out of Bosnia and
12 Herzegovina and thus from Sarajevo and the Marsal Tito barracks. They
13 moved out, and this was monitored by the UN. They were to leave behind
14 their heavy weapons for the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina and to take
15 with them only their personal weapons. When they were moving out, some of
16 them stayed in Grbavica, which is a part of town on the other side of the
17 river. And as I said, we still had TV broadcasts, and of course we
18 watched both Belgrade and Zagreb TV. And young men who had been doing
19 their military service in the JNA really did go back to their homes and
20 their families, but evidently the largest part of the JNA - officers,
21 soldiers, and weapons - stayed in Bosnia-Herzegovina, around Sarajevo, and
22 they were simply transformed into the army of Karadzic's Serbs, or later
23 on, the army of Republika Srpska.
24 Q. And so at that time, were any areas established or locations in
25 the city established where we could refer to them, say, as front lines,
Page 644
1 occupied by soldiers?
2 A. In April, May, early July, no lines had yet been established. We
3 couldn't call those lines. The urban areas where people lived were
4 patrolled by reserve policemen and the units of the Territorial Defence
5 and volunteers from the houses and flats where people lived. I don't
6 remember the exact date when a state of war was declared and the army of
7 Bosnia and Herzegovina was formally established and general mobilisation
8 was announced. In Sarajevo, this meant setting up an army to defend the
9 town. It was only in September or October that one could speak of lines
10 being established when trenches began to be dug by the town, which was
11 under siege from all sides, and these trenches were the defence lines.
12 Q. Right. Thank you. So in May, the situation you've described
13 clearly did not lead to any settled confrontation. You have referred to
14 mobilisations. What in fact happened, and when was that initiated, to try
15 and mobilise a defence force?
16 A. The Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued a call for
17 mobilisation, saying that able-bodied young men were to report to the
18 municipal mobilisation bodies, and that is how the organisation of the
19 army began. Its first commander was the commander of the Territorial
20 Defence, who, during the former Yugoslavia and during the time of the JNA,
21 when they controlled the town, had been the Territorial Defence
22 commander. He expressed loyalty to the government of sovereign Bosnia and
23 Herzegovina.
24 Later on, of course, there were changes, and the mobilisation was
25 carried out according to city districts and municipalities, and people
Page 645
1 responded, but there were no weapons or uniforms, or there were very small
2 amounts. And there was a big depot containing weapons and equipment for
3 the Territorial Defence on the edge of the town, and this was moved
4 overnight by the JNA. It was moved to another location, where it could
5 not be used to arm and equip the regular army of the state of Bosnia and
6 Herzegovina, and this was in Faletici, where this depot used to be.
7 Q. And did your city Presidency have any role in the military aspect
8 of the defence of the city?
9 A. [No interpretation]
10 Q. Now, you have described that during this period -- we have had a
11 description of shelling of the city. Can you say whether these shellings
12 resulted in human casualties?
13 MR. BLAXILL: Your Honours, we appear to have an indication there
14 was no interpretation of my last question.
15 JUDGE ORIE: I think it was the answer to the question, as far as
16 I can see, it's "A. No interpretation." I didn't hear any answer
17 pronounced by the witness.
18 MR. BLAXILL: I thought he said "no."
19 JUDGE ORIE: Perhaps a very short answer.
20 MR. BLAXILL: May I ask the question again for clarity on the
21 record?
22 JUDGE ORIE: Please do, Mr. Blaxill.
23 MR. BLAXILL:
24 Q. Mr. Kupusovic, did your presidency have any role in the military
25 aspect of the defence of city of Sarajevo? Could you answer that question
Page 646
1 again, please, sir, for our records here.
2 A. No. It had no role in the military aspect.
3 Q. Thank you very much. Just before that, Mr. Kupusovic, I had asked
4 you whether there had been any human casualties as a result of the
5 shelling of the city that had commenced then and been going for a little
6 while during May of 1992. Can you tell me if you know that?
7 A. Yes. There were numerous casualties. We could hear ambulances,
8 the sirens of ambulances driving the wounded to hospital. There were ten
9 or fifteen casualties every day.
10 Q. Do you recall or do you know whether these casualties were
11 civilian casualties or were people who were engaged in some kind of active
12 hostilities?
13 A. Civilians. Also, there were some policemen or members of these
14 groups defending the town.
15 Q. Are you aware, Mr. Kupusovic, of any kind of proportion between
16 the two as to which civilian or these other groups had the greater
17 casualties at that time?
18 A. 95 per cent of the victims were civilians, and only a few per cent
19 were reserve policemen and other members of the city defence.
20 Q. Now, of those casualties, were they only casualties of the
21 shelling of the city, or were there any other ways in which they were
22 being killed?
23 A. There was a lot of shooting from infantry weapons, and citizens
24 started calling these sniper shots, people at crossroads or in the streets
25 were wounded or killed in this way.
Page 647
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 648
1 Q. So what initially did the citizens do to try and protect
2 themselves, say, when they were at crossroads or at other places in the
3 city as regards this shooting that they refer to as sniping?
4 A. At the very beginning after the 2nd of May, most citizens stayed
5 in their basements. They were afraid to go out. They had to go out,
6 however, in order to get bread or to run an errand or see a friend or
7 visit someone who was wounded, and they either had to make detours through
8 narrow streets where there was less danger from the sniping, or they had
9 to run across these places, risking being shot, because there was no other
10 way of crossing from one part of the street, one side of the street to
11 another.
12 Q. I'd like to explore just a little more about the actual style of
13 this shooting. I mean, was this a situation of people who were very close
14 to some kind of actual military group, or were these shots of a different
15 type, at longer range or unseen?
16 A. People crossing the streets or moving around, these people were
17 all civilians. The shooting was from Mount Trebevic, overlooking
18 Sarajevo, from the wood, or in other parts of town, from wooded areas
19 around the town. In mid-May, I personally waited for half an hour with my
20 daughter to cross the street. I kept thinking whether I should go back or
21 cross. And when I thought that the shooting had stopped, we ran across,
22 and on our way back we looked for a way around, a detour, in order to go
23 back. And then, of course, my wife was very angry because I had risked my
24 own life and my daughter's life. However, later on, she did the same
25 thing herself, because there was no other way. You couldn't keep on
Page 649
1 sitting in the basement waiting for the situation to end. You had to
2 organise your family, your life, under these risky conditions, among all
3 the sniping and shelling.
4 Q. So Mr. Kupusovic, was this, therefore, a regular occurrence that
5 there was sniping of this nature?
6 A. It was unforeseeable. There would be a lull of a few hours, then
7 it would start again, and then it would stop. There was no pattern.
8 There was no reason we could discern why it started or stopped.
9 Q. You've just given us one of your own personal experiences of
10 sniper shot. Can you tell us, please, where that was that you and your
11 daughter had to take the risky crossing?
12 A. It was at the crossing between the hygienic institute and
13 Skenderija, in the very centre of town, which lies open towards
14 Trebevic.
15 Q. And could you tell us whether you were able to tell where the shot
16 was coming from or where the shooting was coming from, from that place?
17 A. It was obvious, because there were a few big trees there and you
18 could see the bullet flying through the leaves and hitting the asphalt or
19 person, if it hit someone. And it was obviously coming from the hill,
20 from the mountain, a few hundred metres behind Skenderija.
21 Q. And you have mentioned, I believe, that there were obviously other
22 areas, other places where this happened. What kind of features indicated
23 -- made for the places where the sniping took place? In other words, is
24 there some particular feature about an area that made it more vulnerable
25 to it being sniped upon?
Page 650
1 A. The centre of town, where the streets are wider and where the
2 streets run at a right angle to the long axis of the town, this is where
3 there was most sniping, and these streets were very dangerous to cross.
4 People made detours to avoid them. And also the streets on both banks of
5 the river Miljacka, where there were open spaces without buildings, this
6 was also exposed to this kind of fire. The narrower streets, or the parts
7 where the buildings are taller, these were safer, so that for the first
8 few weeks the townspeople learned which streets and crossings were
9 dangerous and which were less dangerous, and this applied to every part of
10 town, but I have simply described the centre, around the assembly, the
11 Holiday Inn hotel, the barracks, where the army had moved out, but this
12 was all exposed, because the army of Karadzic's Serbs and their snipers
13 were on the other side.
14 Q. Did the city Presidency have any responsibility for the sort of
15 public safety in the sense of the infrastructure and trying to arrange
16 safety measures for the population of Sarajevo in those conditions?
17 A. As regards public utilities, the Presidency had exclusive
18 responsibility for this. But as regards security, protection from sniping
19 and shelling, the Presidency had no responsibility for this, but it did
20 look after the security of citizens by taking care that communications
21 were established and that people could move around under these conditions
22 that prevailed.
23 Q. So did the Presidency, of which you were part, have any role in
24 contacting others about protection for the citizens in respect of this
25 sniping?
Page 651
1 A. Yes. The civilian defence of the town of Sarajevo, according to
2 its establishment, was under the republican staff, so that the
3 commander came from the republican staff, but the town civil defence, its
4 commander was a member of the city Presidency, and it obeyed the
5 instructions of the Presidency of the town in connection with helping to
6 maintain the infrastructure of the city.
7 Q. And to your recollection, did the civilian protection do anything
8 to try and assist protecting civilians from sniper fire?
9 A. Yes. In the beginning, the local organisations of the civilian
10 protection set up trash containers or buses or trucks that had been burnt,
11 where there had been fires, they put them there on their own initiative,
12 to make movements safer. Later on, the city Presidency organised and the
13 civilian protection carried out the setting up of large containers from
14 railcars that were found at the railway station in Sarajevo, and these
15 provided better protection from the sniper shots and from the infantry
16 weapons. Of course, machinery had to be used to move these containers.
17 It couldn't be done by hand. So that cranes from companies that had that
18 were recruited to move these containers by night.
19 Q. Can you say when those measures started to be taken in Sarajevo,
20 to put up the barriers against sniping?
21 A. This started in May. I'm referring to setting up protection on
22 people's own initiative. Later on it was organised by the Presidency of
23 the city and the civilian protection and companies that were able to
24 provide the service of moving and setting up these large containers.
25 Q. You've used the expression "people's own initiative." What do you
Page 652
1 mean by that? Was that just local community action, local residents, as
2 it were?
3 A. Yes. Sarajevo was organised into 120 local communes. These were
4 local organisations of municipal self-government. There would be several
5 streets or several buildings, and the inhabitants of these constituted a
6 local commune. They would have a small administrative centre and one
7 employee, a secretary, and the people there got together and they would
8 put several trash containers at the end of a street to make it less
9 exposed to sniping. So this was self-organisation without any sort of
10 command or special organisation. So on a local level, the population
11 tried to protect themselves.
12 Q. And later you say that the, as it were, the authorities became
13 involved. And can you tell us what sort of criteria were applied in
14 choosing where to put up the barricades in order? There must have been
15 many demands, but how did you select which places to put up the
16 barricades?
17 A. When the city Presidency started functioning in early June, and
18 until then the mayor's office which functioned the whole time, had been
19 receiving reports as to where people had been wounded or killed by sniping
20 and who these people were. So that along with general knowledge of which
21 places were risky, there was also precise information, and if several
22 people had been killed or wounded at a certain crossroads, this crossroads
23 was given priority to set up this sort of passive anti-sniping
24 protection. It took a great deal of effort to set this up, to find
25 trucks, containers, to make a certain part of town passable in relation to
Page 653
1 snipers.
2 One of the first crossings was the one where I had my personal
3 experience, and containers -- two containers high, a wall two containers
4 high was set up, because a lot of people had been wounded there, and in
5 the centre of town, where there were more people, that was given priority.
6 Q. And can you tell us any other significant locations where in the
7 earlier stages some of the barricades were erected, other than the
8 junction where you had your incident?
9 A. There were anti-sniper barricades in front of the Energoinvest
10 building, where there was a wide street. Then little by little, actually,
11 in all the streets that were exposed and that were close to these lines
12 outside the town from which shots were fired at the town. In Novi Grad, a
13 lot were set up on the main road leading toward Ilidza, also on the old
14 town on Bascarsija, which is the old centre of town. There's a big square
15 there, where there were several rows of anti-sniper barricades.
16 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Blaxill, would this be a suitable moment to
17 stop? Because we have to stop at 7.00. Unless you have one short
18 question left, but otherwise --
19 MR. BLAXILL: In fact, that's why my learned friend and I were in
20 brief conversation.
21 JUDGE ORIE: That's what I thought, as a matter of fact.
22 MR. BLAXILL: I have more to say on the subject, but it's a good
23 place to break, so indeed, Your Honour.
24 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you very much, Mr. Blaxill. It is the
25 attention of the Trial Chamber that once this witness will be excused, so
Page 654
1 after examination-in-chief, of course, cross-examination, and if necessary
2 re-examination, that we'll have a short Status Conference and see what
3 problems still have to be solved. So I don't know whether this will be
4 during tomorrow, already tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, but the Court
5 stays in recess until a quarter past 2.00 p.m. tomorrow.
6 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 6.59 p.m.,
7 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 4th day of December
8 2001, at 2.15 a.m.
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25