Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 2083

1 Wednesday, 23 January 2002

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 9.02 a.m.

5 JUDGE ORIE: Madam Registrar, would you please call the case.

6 THE REGISTRAR: Case number IT-98-29-T, the Prosecutor versus

7 Stanislav Galic.

8 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you very much, Madam Registrar.

9 First of all, General Galic, I hope that the reasons for your

10 absence yesterday did not bring any unpleasant surprises, and if there's

11 any reason or if there's any consequence for your ability of being in

12 Court, please inform the Chamber, since I understood that you were away

13 for medical reasons yesterday.

14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. President. Good

15 morning, Your Honours. I should like to thank you for giving me enough

16 time yesterday to have my medical examination. I don't have any

17 particular news to tell you regarding my health, but I have already

18 informed my counsel, and I am going to inform you about that. I have a

19 problem with wearing a flak jacket. I should like to have your permission

20 to wear a lighter version of the flak jacket, and I think that this would

21 alleviate to a greater extent the problem that I have in my spine. Thank

22 you very much.

23 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. We'll pay attention to that, Mr. Galic. Please

24 be seated.

25 The second issue I just wanted to touch upon briefly is I did

Page 2084

1 understand that there has been a meeting yesterday between the parties. I

2 hope that there's no news from that, but if this would be otherwise, this

3 would be the moment to inform this Chamber about it. I see nodding twice

4 no news.

5 MR. IERACE: Mr. President, no news is good news.

6 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, no news is good news. So then I think the

7 Prosecution could call its next witness.

8 MR. IERACE: Mr. President, Your Honours, the next witness for the

9 Prosecution is Baron Aernout van Lynden. He will be taken by

10 Stefan Waespi of the trial team for the Prosecution.

11 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Ierace.

12 Mr. Usher, would you please bring in the witness.

13 [The witness entered court]

14 JUDGE ORIE: Good morning.

15 THE WITNESS: Good morning.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Can you hear me in a language you understand?

17 THE WITNESS: I can indeed.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you very much. The Rules require you to make a

19 solemn declaration, of which the text will be handed out to you now by the

20 usher. Would you please make this solemn declaration, Mr. van Lynden.

21 WITNESS: AERNOUT VAN LYNDEN

22 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the

23 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

24 JUDGE ORIE: Please be seated, Mr. van Lynden. You will be

25 examined first by Mr. Waespi of the Prosecution team.

Page 2085

1 Please proceed, Mr. Waespi.

2 MR. WAESPI: Good morning, Your Honours.

3 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Counsel.

4 MR. WAESPI: I'm sorry. Good morning, Your Honours.

5 Examined by Mr. Waespi:

6 Q. Good morning, Mr. van Lynden.

7 A. Good morning.

8 Q. Can you please state for the record your full name.

9 A. My full name is Carel Diederic Aernout Baron van Lynden.

10 Q. What is your nationality?

11 A. I'm Dutch.

12 Q. And your place of birth and date?

13 A. I was born in Kensington, in London, United Kingdom, on the 31st

14 of December, 1954.

15 Q. What is your profession?

16 A. I'm a war correspondent.

17 Q. And for how many years?

18 A. Twenty-two years.

19 Q. Let me briefly take you through your education and professional

20 background experience. You went to school in England and attended

21 military training with the Dutch marines. Did you get any special areas

22 of training?

23 A. In university or the marine corps?

24 Q. In the marine corps.

25 A. In the marine corps, it was national service for two years, a

Page 2086

1 one-year course as a training to become a second lieutenant, an officer,

2 in the marine corps. And I had training, once I had become an officer, in

3 mortars as a speciality.

4 Q. In 1979 to 1981, you worked for a Dutch newspaper covering the war

5 in Lebanon in the Iraq/Iran invasion?

6 A. I began journalism in The Hague as you said at the Haagsche

7 Courant on their foreign desk with responsibility for southern Europe and

8 the Middle East. That led to me going to Lebanon where civil war had

9 started in 1975. And in September 1980, I was in Baghdad when Iraq

10 invaded Iran. I then covered that conflict also from the Iranian side.

11 And then in the beginning of 1981, I left the Haagsche Courant and began

12 working as a freelance journalist in the Middle East.

13 Q. Now, as a freelance journalist, you worked from 1982 to 1988, and

14 you've just said in the Middle East. For which media organisations did

15 you work?

16 A. I worked for the "Washington Post" newspaper, for BBC Radio, and

17 for the "Observer" newspaper in England.

18 Q. Then in 1988, you joined Sky News, first as diplomatic and then as

19 a foreign correspondent?

20 A. That is correct.

21 Q. What is Sky News?

22 A. That is a 24-hour television news channel based in London.

23 It's -- it goes out via satellite, the Astra satellite and is therefore --

24 if anyone has a dish, you can watch it throughout Europe.

25 Q. And again, you covered for Sky News the revolution in Romania,

Page 2087

1 Lebanon, among many others?

2 A. In 1989, I returned to Lebanon, specifically because of the

3 hostage crisis. In December of 1989, I was in Romania. In 1990 until

4 1991, I spent seven months in Saudi Arabia covering the crisis and Gulf

5 War. And after that I spent most of my time in the former Yugoslavia.

6 Q. Yes, thank you. Let's now go to former Yugoslavia. In 1991, you

7 came for the first time to the Balkans and covered the conflict in

8 Slovenija and Croatia, also Vukovar?

9 A. I was sent, just prior to the Slovenian declaration of

10 independence, to Ljubjana and stayed there for several weeks during that

11 initial conflict. When that ended, I returned home first and was then

12 within a matter of days sent to Belgrade, and basically spent most of the

13 rest of that year, with some periods of free time at home, in -- based in

14 Belgrade covering from the Serb side the war that ensued in Croatia. That

15 included many visits to Vukovar. Also included going with the Yugoslav

16 Army to around Dubrovnik and being with militia forces in Banjine and

17 Krajina.

18 Q. In this time you just covered, did you have occasion to meet and

19 interview civilians and military leaders?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Can you give a couple of names.

22 A. The highest interview I did was with General Karadzic at that

23 time, the commander in chief of the Yugoslav Army. In the field, we met

24 soldiers, militia men, Milan Martic, who was one of the leaders of the

25 Serbs in Croatia; a man who called himself Captain Dragan, a Serb who I

Page 2088

1 think had been born in Australia, although he was never clear to me about

2 that and fought in Banjine and in Krajina; and many soldiers and people of

3 various ranks around Vukovar.

4 Q. Did you have a chance to talk to Slobodan Milosevic?

5 A. In July 1991, I was given an interview with Mr. Milosevic,

6 conducted an interview with him. And also spoke to him after the

7 interview when he invited me to join him in a glass of whiskey.

8 Q. Let's now turn to Sarajevo, Mr. Van Lynden. Did you work

9 exclusively for Sky News?

10 A. I did, although that said, Sky News has certain allegiances with

11 other news organisations, specifically the television world in Holland

12 with an organisation called "RTL 4" and the United States with CBS. And

13 therefore, at times these organisations would take my stories or ask me to

14 comment for them. That was not for any extra payment; that was just part

15 of my work as Sky News correspondent.

16 Q. Can you tell us who was part of your crew?

17 A. The crews, the cameramen, the sound recorders, and the editors,

18 the people who put together the pictures of a story always came from

19 London. So staff members of Sky News, not always exclusively English,

20 Australians, Irish as well. Apart from that, we had producers come from

21 England at certain moments. I was also accompanied also by what we refer

22 to as local producers. These were people of Yugoslav nationality who went

23 with us into the field both to help us, to organise, and of course to help

24 in translation as I don't speak Serbo-Croat.

25 Q. While you were in Sarajevo covering the conflict, how often would

Page 2089

1 you make reports? Was it on a daily basis?

2 A. Yes, it was at least once a day. Sometimes depending on the news

3 item, because we are a 24-hour news channel, we have a deadline every

4 hour. And therefore if something happened, we would make more than one

5 report.

6 Q. Now, you may have touched upon that already, but just to make it

7 clear, was Sky News broadcasted in former Yugoslavia?

8 A. It was visible in the former Yugoslavia, as I've said, if you had

9 a dish. Also in 1991 and I believe into 1992, there was an agreement

10 signed in 1989 between Sky and Yugoslav television whereby the Yugoslav

11 television had the rights to rebroadcast Sky News. And this was certainly

12 done on the third channel in Belgrade throughout 1991.

13 Q. Before we go into details, I would like to know in broad terms the

14 times you were in Sarajevo. Let's start with 1992. First, there was a

15 period between May until August 1992. Where in Sarajevo did you stay?

16 A. When I arrived in Sarajevo in May 1992, I had not been to the city

17 before and initially drove to the presidency. There were no hotels at

18 that stage that were open. And they found a room for me in what had been

19 a government residence for foreign guests, VIPs. It was later turned into

20 the residence of the commander of UNPROFOR in Sarajevo. This is a quite

21 low building from which, when there was shelling during the nights, we

22 immediately realised -- my cameraman and myself -- that we couldn't work,

23 we couldn't do the filming. There was also no cellar in which we could

24 hide.

25 And on the second or third day in Sarajevo, we went to what had

Page 2090

1 been the military hospital, which had very badly been shot up at that

2 stage. We met the senior surgeon there, a man called Dr. Abdulah Nakas,

3 and we asked him whether we could stay on the top floor of his hospital

4 which-- where there were no patients. They had been evacuated because it

5 was too dangerous. But where we would in a position to work during the

6 nights to film shelling because right in front of the hospital, you had

7 the Marin Dvor square, the parliament, Grbavica, the Serb-held parts of

8 Sarajevo. To our left, the old part of the city, and to our right the new

9 part of Sarajevo, and it was all very clearly visible. Quite a tall

10 building. And from then on Dr. Nakas agreed that we would be allowed to

11 stay there, and from then on I spent practically every single night when I

12 was in Sarajevo in the hospital.

13 Q. Where did you have the editing facilities?

14 A. It depended. At various times we had them in different places.

15 Initially the decision had been taken by management in London in May 1992,

16 because practically the entire world press had just fled Sarajevo, that

17 both the editing and our satellite uplink - it's a large dish - to send

18 out the pictures should be -- remain in Pale while we went inside the

19 city. That, however, meant that on a daily basis, my cameraman and I had

20 to cross lines to Ilidza to hand over our tapes and our story, and this

21 was clearly very dangerous.

22 So from -- when we returned later in June to Sarajevo, I had the

23 editing with me. Until early August, we found a base to work from, in the

24 Kosevo Hospital, and after that, when I returned at the end of October

25 1992, I -- we had a base, a working base within the TV centre at

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Page 2092

1 Sarajevo. But as I said, my nights would be spent at what has become

2 known as the State Hospital, the former military hospital of Sarajevo.

3 Q. In September 1992, you were again there for three and a half

4 weeks. Do you know the exact dates?

5 A. I'm afraid that I don't know the precise dates, no. We -- on that

6 occasion we did not go into Sarajevo, as far as the Bosnian side was

7 concerned. The aim of that mission was to try to cover the war from the

8 Serb side, to also allow the Serbs to speak for themselves as to how they

9 saw the war. I held discussions with Dr. Karadzic in Belgrade prior to

10 going into Bosnia and he agreed that I could come to Pale. He also agreed

11 that we -- that his authorities, his people, would see to it that we would

12 be able to work. We had tried to work previously to that for a few days

13 in -- from Pale, but on each occasion that we sort of stepped in the car,

14 we were immediately arrested and it was impossible to do any work. And

15 then we spent three and a half weeks based in the -- in Pale, in the

16 Pensione Olympic, covering various aspects from the Serb side.

17 Q. Now, the third period you were in Sarajevo, or covering the

18 conflict in Sarajevo in 1992, was when you returned at the end of October

19 1992 to Sarajevo. How long did you stay in Sarajevo in that period?

20 A. We stayed until, as I remember, the 19th or 20th of December, so

21 just before Christmas, when we left, went to Belgrade, where there were

22 elections, and then went home, had a winter break.

23 Q. Now, in 1993, how long were you covering Sarajevo?

24 A. 1993 I was initially sent into Central Bosnia. I did make some

25 trips into Sarajevo, but always of a rather short nature, so a couple of

Page 2093

1 days, two, three days, and I didn't do the extensive coverage of Sarajevo

2 that I had done in 1992.

3 Q. And very briefly: 1994, what was your presence in relation to

4 Sarajevo?

5 A. Again, it was sporadic and usually of a relatively short nature,

6 although I did spend a couple of weeks there following -- in March 1994,

7 following the first market massacre.

8 Q. Now, let's talk in detail about the period September until

9 December 1992. In September 1992, did you interview General Mladic?

10 A. I did.

11 Q. Do you recall the exact date?

12 A. No.

13 Q. What's the position in September? Was it early, was it

14 mid-September?

15 A. Certainly the first half of September. When we arrived in Pale,

16 we -- I met Dr. Karadzic again. And as we wanted to have access to the

17 forces of the Bosnian Serbs, it made sense for us to ask for an interview

18 with General Mladic, the commanding officer, because that would give me a

19 chance also to ask General Mladic to give me permission to meet with some

20 of his forces, and that interview was granted; not immediately, but it was

21 granted, and therefore it must have been in the early part, because after

22 that -- it was only after that that we were allowed some access to the

23 Bosnian Serb forces.

24 Q. Now, can you describe to us the circumstances you met with General

25 Mladic?

Page 2094

1 A. Yes. We were told to come to what was known as the Bosnian Serb

2 Presidency, at that stage a chalet within Pale, which was basically a ski

3 resort. We waited there. As I remember, around the middle of the day, or

4 maybe it may even have been 1.00, General Mladic arrived. He initially,

5 with maps, gave us a rough briefing as to the military situation as he saw

6 it in Bosnia at that time and then suggested that we go elsewhere to

7 conduct the interview proper. Somewhat to our surprise, he then drove to

8 an artillery position of the Bosnian Serbs overlooking Sarajevo, and there

9 the interview was conducted.

10 Q. How far away from Sarajevo is Pale?

11 A. Not that far, but you can't actually -- from Pale, you can't see

12 Sarajevo, but it's - I don't know - a matter of maybe 15 -- directly, 15

13 kilometres. However, the direct route was closed due to the war, and if

14 you wanted to drive from Pale to Sarajevo, it would take a lot longer.

15 Q. Can you describe to the Court the scenery you saw at the site of

16 the interview?

17 A. Well, the first thing we noticed, really, was that the site was

18 built next to a cemetery, and you walked past that, and then it was an

19 artillery position. He was met by the commander of that position, as I

20 recall, a Potpukovnik , a lieutenant colonel, and there were various

21 pieces of artillery placed not next to each other. They were dug in. It

22 was a prepared position. And they were -- or had been working. There

23 were still bulldozers there preparing further positions at this site.

24 The General didn't mind us filming. We were allowed to film. The

25 only thing that we were requested not to film was the cemetery. So we

Page 2095

1 filmed while he and the lieutenant colonel talked and walked amongst these

2 artillery pieces. There was a wooden table with benches, and that's where

3 we sat down and that's where we conducted the interview, and then below us

4 lay Sarajevo.

5 Q. Can you tell us how many artillery pieces you saw there?

6 A. I don't have a precise figure, but it was more than half a dozen.

7 Q. And how far away from you were these pieces located?

8 A. I mean, we were allowed to walk up to them. That wasn't the

9 point. When we did the interview, they were, I mean, at various

10 distances. They were spread out, as you would expect in an artillery

11 position. Also, because I had actually seen -- when in Sarajevo, I had

12 seen fire coming from this position onto the city, so it was in the line

13 of sight from -- of the Bosnians inside Sarajevo, which made it clear why

14 the Bosnian Serbs had spread out their various pieces, because they could

15 have return fire. So the pieces where we conducted the interview were

16 anywhere between 50 and several hundred metres away from us.

17 Q. How long did the actual interview last?

18 A. As I recall, more than one tape was used, one tape being 30

19 minutes, so I would suspect about 40 minutes, something in that nature.

20 Q. And how much, if anything, of this interview was aired?

21 A. It was certainly aired. Again, as I recall, something like maybe

22 three minutes, which for a news channel, where a bulletin is 30 minutes

23 long, means that one-tenth of the bulletin was given to this story. So it

24 was given quite a lot of prominence, but you don't show it all, because

25 there are other news items in other parts of the world.

Page 2096

1 Q. Now about the substance of the interview. Do you recall what was

2 said, what he said?

3 A. Well, we asked him about the position of what was going on in the

4 war, and he was clearly very confident that he was winning the war and

5 that he felt that the only thing was for them basically to surrender - his

6 opponents I'm referring to - that he had the power to crush them if they

7 did not. When asked what he believed that he was doing, he said, "I'm

8 simply defending my people." His mother still lived in a village in

9 Bosnia. He made that perfectly clear, that he was a Bosnian Serb himself

10 and that he felt that he was defending, as I said, his people.

11 I asked, because it was mooted at the time that a Tribunal of the

12 sort that we find ourselves in today would indeed be opened, whether he

13 was not afraid of being accused of committing war crimes, and he basically

14 laughed it off and said, "Absolutely not." He didn't accept a war crimes

15 Tribunal. He didn't accept that he had committed any kind of war crimes,

16 but that he was, as I said earlier, that he was simply doing his duty.

17 Q. Did he say anything about his relation vis-a-vis Sarajevo?

18 A. Not directly in the interview. When we walked there and we

19 stopped and we looked down, I mean, it was an extraordinary place to be

20 taken, in our opinion.

21 Maybe the Defence attorney could be given some water, Your

22 Honour. There's a lot of coughing going on. I'll continue.

23 When we were walking to the position and we stopped and

24 looked - this is before, prior to the interview - he pointed at the city

25 and then pointed at the palm of his hand and said, "Sarajevo is there."

Page 2097

1 He said, of course, this in Serbo-Croat. As far as I'm aware, General

2 Mladic does not speak any English, and therefore we couldn't communicate

3 directly. But basically he was saying the city was in the palm of his

4 hand.

5 Q. How did you describe General Mladic in your report?

6 A. My opening sentence was that he was the scourge of Sarajevo.

7 Q. And was there any reaction at one time from him?

8 A. There was reaction immediately from various people within Pale,

9 some of whom felt that I was blackening their General. But several days

10 after we made the interview, by chance, on the road we ran into -- I mean

11 not literally, but saw the General again, and he was -- seemed to be very

12 happy to see us and laughed about the fact that I had called him

13 the scourge of Sarajevo. He almost felt that it was a title he deserved.

14 I mean, he seemed very happy with the title.

15 Q. Now, when was the last time you met General Mladic?

16 A. The last time I met General Mladic was in February 1994.

17 Q. Can you tell us the circumstances?

18 A. This was during the crisis, after the first market massacre in

19 Sarajevo, when NATO issued its first ultimatum to the Bosnian Serbs. In

20 the end, the crisis was diffused by an agreement that the Bosnian Serbs

21 would withdraw all their heavy artillery and armour from 20 kilometres

22 around Sarajevo, the 20-kilometre exclusion zone.

23 One morning we were - that's to say, my team - was called from the

24 Bosnian Serb Presidency and asked, together with a team from the BBC, to

25 come to the Bosnian Serb Presidency. The other correspondent, the BBC

Page 2098

1 correspondent, John Simpson, and I thought that this was to do a joint

2 interview with Dr. Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb political leader, but in

3 fact it was simply for us to film a meeting of what can be described as

4 the inner or war cabinet of the Bosnian Serbs, and therefore the senior

5 officers of the Bosnian Serb army attended. General Milutinovic, General

6 Gvero, and then General Mladic arrived, and as he arrived, my camera crew

7 and producer were already in the room where the meeting was to take

8 place. John Simpson and I were standing outside, and General Mladic saw

9 me and began, in what was clearly a not very nice manner, to speak to me

10 and then grabbed me in my face, spitting out two words in particular:

11 Zuc and Gorazde. Zuc is a hill north of Sarajevo which, at the end of

12 1992, was recaptured by the Bosnian forces. I was with those Bosnian

13 forces the day after the capture and did a story on the capture of Zuc,

14 but it is a -- not a huge, but it was a defeat for the Bosnian Serbs,

15 which the Bosnian Serbs never publicly admitted to. And the word

16 "Gorazde" that he uttered referred to the fact that in February 1993 I

17 walked through Serb lines into Gorazde and stayed several weeks there and

18 made a half-hour documentary about this enclave in Eastern Bosnia.

19 Q. Have you ever met Radovan Karadzic?

20 A. Several times.

21 Q. And when was that?

22 A. In the summer of 1992, I met him at the London conference that was

23 held; I met him at the beginning of September 1992, prior to my visit that

24 I have been describing to Pale; and I met him several times in Pale in

25 September 1992; and I met him again in February 1994, after the market

Page 2099

1 massacre.

2 Q. Did you ever formally interview him?

3 A. I did, but usually what was the case was Mr. Karadzic, who spoke

4 excellent English, was very willing to speak to my organisation, to Sky

5 News. And therefore what was preferred that he did so directly, either by

6 doing interviews via the telephone with our presenters in London, or live

7 in front of a camera, but being asked the questions from London. The

8 interviews that I did, therefore, in front with the camera were always

9 usually shorter, getting him to answer on one particular point of news or

10 one particular incident. I had long conversations with him, but usually

11 not with a camera. So I never conducted the kind of interview in front of

12 the camera that I had conducted with General Mladic, for instance, or

13 President Milosevic.

14 Q. Do you know the reason why Radovan Karadzic was eager to talk to

15 Sky News?

16 A. Because we could be seen in the region, because he considered us

17 as one of the important international news organisations and seemed to

18 equate us with the position of CNN and of the BBC. And therefore, he felt

19 that it was important to be able to put his point of view on such a

20 channel.

21 Q. In the course of these discussions you had with him, did Radovan

22 Karadzic ever make a comment about the fate of non-Serbs in Sarajevo?

23 A. He made various comments about Sarajevo, not in the interviews but

24 in general conversations that we had with him, which sometimes lasted for

25 several hours, he made it quite clear that in his opinion Sarajevo

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Page 2101

1 belonged solely to the Serbs. I remember distinctly him saying that all

2 the ground was actually Serb territory, Serb houses, that it was a Serb

3 city, and it belonged to them and it should belong to them.

4 Then there were moments when he said I am also willing to

5 compromise, and it was his compromise which astounded me at the time, was

6 that a version of the Berlin wall should be built in Sarajevo because he

7 said, of course, we can never live with these people again, and therefore

8 a wall should be built. When I put it to him that this was an outrageous

9 comment given the fact that we were living in what we hoped was a new

10 Europe where the Berlin wall had finally come down, he didn't seem to

11 regard it as outrageous at all. He just kept repeating that he could not

12 ever live with these people. He described -- when I said that they are

13 all the same, the Croats, Serbs, Muslims are all Slav people, he said, and

14 excuse me for swearing, but these are the actual words that I recall, that

15 the Muslims were not Slavs, that they had been "fucked to death by the

16 Turks" and therefore he considered them Turks.

17 Q. Did you meet him again in 1994?

18 A. Yes, I did. Almost immediately on arrival in Pale, I was told to

19 go to the Bosnian Serb Presidency and wait for him there. When he

20 arrived, we waited several hours. His first words were "Oh, no, not

21 Van Lynden", but he then did grant an interview with a camera, but there

22 was no conversation between us prior or after that interview. It was just

23 a question of him sitting in front of the camera answering my questions,

24 and then we were told to leave. I saw him several other instances during

25 that time and during that crisis, but I didn't have any conversations with

Page 2102

1 him.

2 Q. Did the interview you had with General Mladic have any effect on

3 you being able to visit the troops?

4 A. Yes, it was a point away from the camera that we asked General

5 Mladic, we said that we had come there also to put the Serb point of view,

6 I mean, and therefore that it was important to us to be given access to

7 front lines and to Bosnian Serb soldiers. And he agreed. And in the days

8 and weeks following that interview, we did make a number of trips to

9 Bosnian Serb positions, and we were given two military policemen as a -- I

10 mean Bosnian Serb military policemen -- as a permanent escort to see to it

11 that the kind of problems that we had had initially in Pale - at every

12 checkpoint we would always be arrested - that these problems didn't

13 recur.

14 Q. Now, when you filmed military positions, did the officers or other

15 military personnel have any concerns about what you were filming?

16 A. It would be extraordinary if they did not. Any officers in any

17 war zone are always concerned with the arrival of television cameras

18 because of a natural fear that we may film certain things that would give

19 away positions to their opponents, specifically, of course, as we came

20 from a television channel and were working for a television channel that

21 could be viewed in the region, anything we filmed. Therefore, my reports

22 could be viewed by all sides. This was always discussed when we went to

23 any kind of position at any time of the war on whichever side we were

24 working on.

25 Generally, we would be taken to company commanders, and a

Page 2103

1 conversation about this would take place. We would make it very clear,

2 usually even we would start the conversation to make it clear to that

3 officer that we were aware of the dangers implicit in giving away any

4 positions, and my cameramen were always also aware of that. So we were

5 very careful in the filming. And I must add that on no occasion have we

6 ever been told by anyone from either the JNA or the Bosnian Serbs that

7 filming that we had done endangered either their men or their positions.

8 The only comment I ever had was from Vukovar that a -- the chief spokesman

9 of the Yugoslav army at that stage was upset that I had shown military

10 debris lying in Sarajevo that had not been cleared.

11 Q. But that's 1991.

12 A. That's 1991.

13 Q. Now, when you visited these positions in September 1992, in what

14 areas did you go?

15 A. We went to various places. In the Serb-held districts within

16 Sarajevo, Grbavica, Hrasno, and the area adjoining what was known as the

17 Jewish cemetery, also on Mount Trebevic where the Serbs had various

18 positions overlooking the city much higher up. I made one, as I recall,

19 two- or three-day journey right the way around the city to Vogosca, to

20 Ilidza, and to Hadzici. So various positions along. At some of these we

21 were told by the military commanders that we went to when we were brought

22 by this escort of two military policemen that they did not want to have us

23 there, and they didn't care what anyone in Pale said about it. In others,

24 we were allowed to work and did, indeed, work and film reports, and

25 everything we filmed was put on air.

Page 2104

1 Q. Perhaps you can start telling us what you saw when you visited the

2 area of Grbavica. Do you recall the date when that trip took place?

3 A. I'm afraid I do not.

4 Q. Can you say in what part of September that was?

5 A. Well, it was in the middle or later part of September.

6 Q. Was it before or after the interview you conducted with General

7 Mladic?

8 A. After. We didn't get to see any positions before the interview

9 with General Mladic took place.

10 Q. Now, do you recall how this particular visit was arranged, who

11 accompanied you, who received you at that particular spot?

12 A. Well, it was arranged via the Bosnian Serb Presidency in Pale. We

13 had put in these requests, and my producer would go there and talk to them

14 as to what would be possible when. The only escort we had was of these

15 two military policemen and -- who were told where to go and who to see.

16 We began on Mount Trebevic. That was logical. As driving, you would

17 drive over the mountain down towards the Lukavica barracks. And so we

18 stopped on the way, we conducted various interviews with soldiers also

19 higher up on the mountain, saw some of those positions. And then came

20 down into Grbavica. And again, we were taken to a command post usually in

21 a civilian -- formerly civilian building, not into barracks. And there we

22 would meet, as I said, usually a company commander.

23 Q. How do you know this person was a company commander?

24 A. A, they were wearing uniforms; B, they had ranks, either here or

25 sometimes attached. And these were the same ranks that you would see --

Page 2105

1 that I had seen in the previous year when going to places like Vukovar.

2 These were the old ranks of the Yugoslav National Army.

3 Q. Thank you very much. Just for the record indicating --

4 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, I would ask you to do that.

5 MR. WAESPI: For the record, you just pointed on your right

6 shoulder.

7 A. Both shoulders.

8 Q. Can you tell us, on the left shoulder, what was on the left

9 shoulder and what was on the right shoulder?

10 A. I don't precisely recall whether there was a difference. Stars or

11 bars, if they were attached here, indicating that they were lieutenants or

12 captains or majors.

13 Q. And did they wear any insignias on their chests?

14 A. I don't always recall them, sorry. There were times when units

15 had other badges on this part of the arm, this part. And they were

16 wearing cap badges. And that had changed because in 1991, this was still

17 the red star. This had now been changed to the white, red, and blue of

18 the Serb, the Serb colours.

19 MR. WAESPI: Perhaps, Your Honour, just for the record again, when

20 the witness said, "There were times when units had other badges on this

21 part of the arm," he showed on to the upper part of the arm just below the

22 shoulder. And in fact, he indicated that this would apply to both arms,

23 left and right.

24 A. It could apply only to one, sometimes to both. It differed.

25 Q. And also the right chest. Do you recall that -- was anything on

Page 2106

1 the right chest or the left one, or you just cannot tell?

2 A. I can't recall. I'm sorry.

3 JUDGE ORIE: To make it quite clear, it's my recollection that

4 when the witness said they had uniforms with ranks either here or

5 sometimes attached, he first pointed at his shoulder.

6 A. Yes.

7 JUDGE ORIE: And secondly, he pointed at the front of his chest.

8 MR. WAESPI: Thank you very much for that clarification, Your

9 Honour.

10 A. May I just clarify: There are different kinds of uniforms that

11 can be worn. Depends -- the standard JNA uniform would have rank up here

12 on the shoulder. But there were other uniforms -- if there were certain

13 vests, it was a stick-on with velcro of rank. In that case, for instance,

14 a captain would have two bars rather than stars, while he would have had

15 one star here. That's my recollection.

16 JUDGE ORIE: And then you were pointing at your right front

17 chest. Just for the record so that --

18 A. I'm sorry. I can't remember whether it was here or here.

19 JUDGE ORIE: It's not a matter of the content of your statement.

20 It's just a matter from the transcript, we cannot see where you are

21 pointing at, so that's why we use these words to indicate where you

22 pointed at. Thank you.

23 MR. WAESPI:

24 Q. Let's go to the positions you were shown.

25 MR. WAESPI: I think my friend is on his feet.

Page 2107

1 JUDGE ORIE: I'm sorry, yes, please, Mr. Piletta-Zanin.

2 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. As

3 we're discussing the transcript, I thought I heard in one of the languages

4 that the interpreters were asking the speakers to speak a little more

5 slowly and make pauses between question and answer. I think I heard that

6 from the interpreters. Thank you.

7 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, I can imagine since there's no need of English

8 translation that we could not hear that. Mr. Van Lynden, could you please

9 stop, if the words are still moving, wait to answer the question.

10 Otherwise, the translation in the other languages might not be able to

11 follow you.

12 A. Yes, Your Honour.

13 MR. WAESPI:

14 Q. Mr. Van Lynden, can you describe to us, to the Judges, what you

15 saw at this position?

16 A. In Grbavica, we were taken into flat buildings to different rooms

17 in these flat buildings at different levels where there were gun

18 placements of various sorts. This includes positions where there were

19 machine-guns, but also other rooms where there were sniper rifles. These

20 were -- I mean, there were sandbags. It was usually dark, and there were

21 only small bits of window left open. These were front-line military

22 positions in an urban war.

23 Q. Can you describe to the Court one of the sniper rifles? Thank

24 you.

25 Can you please describe to the Court one of these sniper rifles

Page 2108

1 you saw there?

2 A. Yes, they are long-barrelled with wooden stocks. Others that I saw

3 had stocks made of precisely what material I don't -- these are these sort

4 of modern materials. But clearly, long-barreled, not Kalishnikovs, which

5 would be the normal rifle for any soldier to have. And I'm not an expert

6 on sniping, but these -- I had seen sniper rifles in Lebanon and in other

7 parts of the world, and it was clear to me that these were sniper rifles.

8 Q. Were there any sights?

9 A. Yes, there were always sights. Any sniper rifle -- sorry, I

10 should have mentioned that. But there were always sights on the top of

11 the rifle.

12 Q. Now, just before you started describing these positions, you said

13 that there were flat buildings. Can you tell us what you mean by that?

14 A. Sorry, apartment blocks.

15 Q. Apartment blocks. How many storeys?

16 A. Six, seven, up to that. Smaller ones also.

17 Q. And going back now to the equipment you started to talk about,

18 when you mean sights, you mean tel --

19 A. Telescopic sights, yes.

20 Q. Thank you. Did you see any kind of ammunition there in these

21 positions?

22 A. Walking to them, one passed -- although we were not allowed to

23 film this -- mortars with mortar bombs in their cases, in wooden cases

24 standing in courtyards, behind buildings. There was also in this district

25 behind -- as I said, behind buildings away from obviously the direct line

Page 2109

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Page 2110

1 of fire of their opponents, there was armour of various sorts. Tanks,

2 armoured personnel carriers with machine-guns, and also vehicles with

3 anti-aircraft guns mounted, 30 or 40 millimetre anti-aircraft guns.

4 Inside the buildings, the weaponry was not of such heavy type, nor

5 was the ammunition. The ammunition that we saw was generally of what

6 would be the bullets for a Kalishnikov, but obviously sniper rifles

7 carried a different kind of bullet as far as I'm aware. But we didn't

8 study the ammunition, nor were we allowed to do so. We were allowed -- on

9 one occasion, my cameraman was allowed to try and take a shot through the

10 telescopic sight of one of these rifles, which is -- it's quite a

11 difficult thing to do. But to make it clear that these were front-line

12 positions with sniper rifles. So they did allow us to film that. And on

13 the floor, there were the empty cartridge cases to show that shooting had

14 taken place from these positions.

15 Q. Now, these positions, did you see just one firing slot or were

16 there several ones?

17 A. I saw several in these apartment blocks. We never actually, when

18 we were in these apartment blocks, saw anyone firing, but I heard firing.

19 But we never actually saw anyone firing.

20 Q. Did you have a chance to go to one of these firing slots and look

21 through?

22 A. Well, what one tries to do is to see what the cameraman -- we work

23 in television after all. But yes, we did.

24 Q. How far away were the --

25 A. These were positioned very close to the River Miljacka, which runs

Page 2111

1 right down sort of the middle of Sarajevo. We could see even a bridge

2 crossing the River Miljacka.

3 Q. Do you recall the distance between your position at the time and

4 the Miljacka River?

5 A. No, I can't say precisely, but it wasn't very far away.

6 Q. Now, turning to the soldiers, can you tell us what they were

7 wearing? Perhaps you have somebody particular in your mind and you could

8 describe him to us.

9 A. Same kind of uniforms that I had seen the Yugoslav Army wearing

10 around Vukovar. Nearly always, they were wearing --

11 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Piletta-Zanin.

12 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] I have an objection to make to

13 the form in which the question has been posed because we cannot know

14 whether they were the soldiers of one camp or another camp. So could we

15 be more specific and define what we mean more precisely. Thank you.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Could you please be more precise, although I did

17 understand that the witness was still telling about what he saw in

18 Grbavica. But if this is -- could you please make that sure.

19 MR. WAESPI: Yes, Your Honour. Certainly.

20 Q. Mr. van Lynden, we were just talking about these sniper positions,

21 and I would like to ask you to describe one of these sniper ...

22 A. They were clearly still in Grbavica. I was describing a soldier

23 of the Bosnian Serb army, and as I was saying, he was wearing precisely

24 the same uniform that the Yugoslav army wore the previous year, and as far

25 as I could see, there was very little difference. Also, as far as the

Page 2112

1 officers were concerned, they were often immaculately turned out. They

2 carried the same bags for maps that I had seen all the officers in the

3 Yugoslav army carry the previous year. As I said, the only difference

4 that I could note at that time was that the Red Star had been taken off

5 and a new badge had been -- with the colours of the flag - white, blue,

6 and red - had been added. Sometimes some of these men were not wearing

7 boots and were wearing sneakers, but we attributed that to the fact that

8 they were not in trenches but were inside buildings.

9 Q. Was the observation of the potential target organised, and if so,

10 how?

11 A. They -- and again, we're still in Grbavica here. They had

12 walkie-talkies, small radios, and there were clearly other positions

13 higher up or in other buildings, higher up the slope overlooking Sarajevo,

14 who were in contact with these men on the front line positions, spotters,

15 if you like. It was clear that this was co-ordinated. It's not just a man

16 looking through one slit and deciding to do something if he sees

17 something. There were others. It was a co-ordinated effort, as you would

18 expect from a largely -- I mean, at least the officer corps were all

19 professional soldiers.

20 Q. And the communication between the sniper and the spotter would

21 happen how?

22 A. Via radio, as I've said.

23 Q. Did you see ways the snipers protected themselves from Bosnian

24 fire?

25 A. Yes, I did. In one apartment building they had put a dummy.

Page 2113

1 Snipers will always try to work from the shadows and never get into the

2 light, and what they had done here was, slightly in the light, build a

3 dummy, in a sort of clownesque type figure, quite large, larger than a

4 man, but with white and red and, as I recall, a sort of plastic black hat,

5 and they joked about this and they were rather proud about this.

6 At another position, not in Grbavica, but a Serb, Bosnian Serb

7 position near the Jewish cemetery, which was -- these were normal civilian

8 houses, or had been prior to the war, where they had used entire tree

9 trunks to protect the building, sometimes on the outside but sometimes

10 also on the inside. What I saw also there, which I had never seen

11 before -- I'd seen various devices used in warfare, but here they had,

12 through a system of using mirrors, it meant that somebody could sit in the

13 corner of the room and, by looking at the mirrors, get a view outside if

14 there was any threat to his position. This was something novel. Again,

15 we were allowed to film that, and I did put that in my report, both the

16 dummy and the use of mirrors. It's quite generally used in any front line

17 position where the opponents are very close, or in an urban war

18 battleground, that people will use some kind of a telescope to keep

19 themselves under cover but while being able to look what is happening in

20 the terrain in front of them, but this use of mirrors was a novel one for

21 me.

22 Q. And do you recall the date or the time, approximate or accurate,

23 that you saw those mirrors?

24 A. As I said, these were during the same number -- we went down into

25 the Bosnian Serb side of Sarajevo on several days. It takes time before

Page 2114

1 commanders give you permission to film, and then you have to get to a

2 building and then you have to see what you can film. We didn't,

3 therefore, do it all in one day, so it went over several days of visits to

4 Grbavica, Hrasno, and to the positions by the Jewish cemetery. But this,

5 as I said before, was around the middle, towards the latter half of

6 September.

7 Q. Now, have you attended an incident which involved a machine-gun

8 position?

9 A. Yes, we did. When we were taken to Hrasno, we were taken to a

10 position somewhat higher up than the apartment block that I was referring

11 to earlier in Grbavica, and there the gun emplacement was not inside the

12 house but had been dug in the garden outside the house. While my producer

13 and I were still speaking to the officer who had taken us to this

14 position, my cameraman and sound recordist had gone to this gun position

15 with two Bosnian Serb soldiers, or two Serb soldiers. There they had a

16 machine-gun. While one man manned the machine-gun, the other looked down

17 with binoculars. And according to my local producer, one of these men,

18 the man who manned the machine-gun itself, was not actually Bosnian Serb

19 but was recognisable through his accent as coming from southern Serbia,

20 specifically the Nis area. And this man at a certain moment opened fire.

21 As I said, I was not at the position itself. We were about 20 metres away

22 from it, talking to the officer who had brought us there. When we asked

23 what he had shot at, his answer was, "The Mujahedin," by which he meant

24 his opponents, the Bosnian Muslims.

25 Q. Did you see any Mujahedin?

Page 2115

1 A. Well, I did make -- well, I did make the point that having been in

2 Afghanistan, I didn't see any Afghans running around, no.

3 Q. Now, you said that the soldier at the machine-gun was from Serbia,

4 the Nis area. Can you describe to the Court the way he looked like, what

5 he was wearing?

6 A. He was wearing, once again, the same uniform that the Yugoslav

7 National Army wore. As I recall, he had a moustache, and he was certainly

8 not the youngest. I mean, he must have been in his 40s.

9 Q. You said earlier that the company commander -- or that the

10 commander showed you around at this point. Perhaps you can clarify that,

11 if I'm right or -- what was his -- do you know where he was from? Was he

12 also from Serbia?

13 A. This is at the Hrasno position, and we did see different

14 commanders, depending on which sector one visited, and one was taken by

15 different officers to these various locations. And as I recall, the

16 man manning the machine-gun is the only one that my producer, who, Your

17 Honour, studied linguistics at Belgrade university but was -- partially

18 his mother was from Croatia, his father from Montenegro, and he was

19 actually born in Bosnia. This man was very much aware of the different

20 accents within the former Yugoslavia. As I recall, the only time he made

21 mention of someone not coming from Bosnia was with this one machine-gun.

22 All the others were, as I recall, Bosnian Serbs.

23 Q. Again, you may not be precise enough. Can you tell us the date

24 this incident happened in Hrasno?

25 A. No, I can't. It's -- as I said earlier already, it's in this

Page 2116

1 general period, in the middle of September 1992.

2 Q. Do you recall an incident on Miljacka River which involved an old

3 lady?

4 A. Yes, I do. This was when we were within these flat buildings in

5 Grbavica, where at one of these positions my cameraman, while filming,

6 suddenly saw an old lady appear and cross one of the bridges - a

7 footbridge; not a major bridge, but a footbridge - across the river

8 Miljacka to -- from the Bosnian Serb side to the Bosnian side. We, of

9 course, asked about this. There was no fire. And the soldiers had

10 clearly been informed that this was going to take place. We had not been

11 informed beforehand. We were surprised about this, but they said that

12 this had been worked out with the other side, that this elderly lady,

13 certainly over 60 years old, they said she was a Muslim and that she

14 should be allowed, after a deal, to cross from their side. One of the

15 soldiers then made the remark, "We don't want any of them with us. They

16 all have to leave."

17 Q. We talked about sniper positions. Can we look at the other side?

18 Can you tell us about hot spots, I mean areas which were particularly

19 dangerous for the population?

20 A. Now, to make it -- if I may just make it clear, also to the

21 Defence attorney. There were positions held on the Bosnian Serb side,

22 specifically within Grbavica, which were dangerous there, where people

23 living there still could come under sniper fire, but much more so on the

24 other side in Sarajevo, where, because of the terrain, because Sarajevo is

25 an elongated city lying in a valley along the river Miljacka, and because

Page 2117

1 the Bosnian Serbs held the high ground, they were in positions to

2 literally shoot down streets within the new part of Sarajevo and within

3 the central part of Sarajevo. And places like Marin Dvor square, much of

4 the length of the Marsal Tito Bulevar, the main road in Sarajevo, were

5 open to sniper fire. And also there was one specific turning -- when

6 one -- quite close to the Bosnian Presidency, where there was often sniper

7 fire and where, in the end, the Bosnian government erected a sort of wall

8 with -- using containers, so that people could walk behind these and not

9 be a potential target.

10 There were areas in the region known as Skenderija - this is

11 Bosnian-held territory, but on the other side of the river

12 Miljacka - which could also come under fire, and a number of the bridges

13 in the Skenderija area and further, also a bridge made famous in June 1914

14 with the assassination of the Austrian Crown Prince, Franz Ferdinand.

15 This bridge also could come under Bosnian Serb fire.

16 Q. Are you aware of any warning signs in these notorious areas you

17 just described to us?

18 A. Not initially. When I initially went into Sarajevo in May 1992,

19 there were not warnings, but later on there were. And as I said, later

20 on, also the Bosnian authorities tried to take some measures to protect

21 civilians, specifically those on foot, from going through these areas.

22 What was also done was in many of the smaller streets, that they would try

23 to find carpets or something to hang in the street, so therefore to

24 prevent direct sight from the higher positions, from the Bosnian Serb

25 positions, from fire in these streets, but that could, of course, only be

Page 2118

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Page 2119

1 done in relatively narrow streets. Marin Dvor square was always an

2 impossibility. But at these points you would then see a warning that

3 there could be a sniper.

4 Q. Do you recall what it exactly said?

5 A. No. I'm afraid -- as I said, I'm afraid I'm not a linguist. I

6 didn't learn Serbo-Croat, apart from a few words. There was "sniper," and

7 as I recall, it was spelled in a different manner. We would in English

8 spell it s-n-i-p-e-r, and I think -- there was an "a" in it, and maybe an

9 "a" and a "j." But it was written in the Roman rather than in Cyrillic

10 writing.

11 Q. And where were they written on?

12 A. As I recall, usually on cardboard or pieces of wood about that

13 size, 50 centimetres by 50 centimetres.

14 Q. Now, you described the tour you made visiting positions of the

15 Bosnian Serb army. How many of these tours did you make?

16 A. Inside -- in September 1992, inside the Bosnian Serb-held areas of

17 Sarajevo, as I recall, we were there for maybe three days. We made a

18 number of other tours, as I mentioned earlier, also around Sarajevo, to

19 various other points, but this is further away from the city, to the north

20 of the city and to Ilidza. So there were a number of tours. In total,

21 visiting with the Bosnian Serbs army, maybe we spent something like ten

22 days in all, but there were other stories to be done as well, of a

23 civilian nature, as far as medical care was concerned, stories of that

24 nature.

25 Q. Now, you just said you have toured around all these positions, you

Page 2120

1 have talked to soldiers and commanders. Of all the snipers you have seen,

2 were they under the command and control of the Bosnian Serb army or not,

3 in your opinion?

4 A. I have absolutely no doubt that all the soldiers that we saw were

5 working within a fairly strictly controlled hierarchical army. As I said,

6 we would always go to a command post first. The commanders that we met

7 were always well attired, professional officers of the Yugoslav army, as

8 far as I could see. There was no difference between the officers I met in

9 1991 and the officers that I met in places like Grbavica in 1992. And the

10 men formed part of an organised army and were under clear military

11 orders. Not all the soldiers that we met were professionals. I mean,

12 many of these were conscripts, and the Yugoslav National Army, of course,

13 had been a conscript army. But there is no doubt to my mind that they

14 were part of, as I said, a controlled military force.

15 Q. Now, let's turn to another subject. Was there an incident you

16 witnessed when an apartment block was on fire?

17 A. You're referring to an incident in Sarajevo, and the answer is

18 yes.

19 Q. And when was that?

20 A. That incident was when I returned to Sarajevo - this time not on

21 the Bosnian Serb side but on the Bosnian side - at the end of October,

22 1992, the incident took place on the 5th of December, 1992, as I now

23 recall. But which in my initial statement I had said had taken place in

24 November 1992.

25 Q. Why do you recall it was the 5th of December, 1992?

Page 2121

1 A. Because I am a dutchman, and in Holland, we have something called

2 Saint Nikolas on the 5th of December, and it was only later that I

3 remembered this.

4 Q. Can you tell us the exact location that incident took place?

5 A. The exact location possibly not, but it was an apartment block

6 along the Marsal Tito Bulevar, and it's -- how should I describe? I don't

7 have a map here. If you have a map, then I can maybe try to point out.

8 MR. WAESPI: Yes, I think that can certainly be arranged.

9 JUDGE ORIE: Am I right in understanding that we are using the

10 original, unmarked black and white map? Thank you.

11 MR. WAESPI: One moment, please, Your Honour.

12 I'm sorry, Your Honours. I think the map with the Exhibit Number

13 P3648 could be suitable to be shown to the witness.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I think we first have to sort out some

15 technical difficulties with the screen, but it has been solved by now.

16 Madam Registrar, the number just mentioned, is that the unmarked original

17 map since if we do need any additional markings, we should have a new

18 exhibit number for it, although we start, then, with the same unmarked

19 black and white map.

20 A. It is --

21 JUDGE ORIE: Just for the record, could you please express

22 yourself in English. I do understand.

23 A. I beg your pardon. It's in this area.

24 MR. WAESPI:

25 Q. As soon as you have found the appropriate spot, if you could mark

Page 2122

1 it with a blue pen with a cross.

2 A. If I can first do this, Your Honour, and just explain as I see it

3 the various places that I'm referring to. What I'm pointing to now, this

4 was the former Marsal Tito barracks, evacuated by the Serb army -- at the

5 beginning of June 1992. Next to it --

6 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Waespi, whenever the witness points at a certain

7 spot indicating what this spot is, would you please invite him to mark it

8 because otherwise -- and do we have a blue marker? Not the black one.

9 Yes, that's important because the black marker is for the Defence.

10 MR. WAESPI: Thank you, Your Honour.

11 Q. Yes, please, Mr. Van Lynden, if you could mark in the middle of

12 what you just pointed out with maybe a "T" indicating that you said it was

13 the Marsal Tito barracks.

14 A. [Marks]

15 Q. And perhaps you can outline the building with a big circle

16 around.

17 A. [Marks]

18 Q. Thank you.

19 A. Alongside it, as I said, runs what was known as the Marsal Tito

20 Bulevar.

21 Q. Perhaps you can also mark it.

22 A. This road.

23 Q. And perhaps you can indicate in the middle of it a "B" indicating

24 that that is the Marsal Tito Bulevar.

25 A. [Marks]

Page 2123

1 Q. Thank you.

2 A. And as I recall, the building that came under fire was roughly in

3 this area.

4 Q. Can you just make a circle.

5 A. [Marks]

6 Q. And indicate maybe the letter Y.

7 A. [Marks]

8 Q. Thank you.

9 Yes, perhaps later we can return to the map. Mr. Van Lynden, how

10 come you were at that location?

11 A. We had spent the previous night with the chief of the Sarajevo

12 Fire Brigade.

13 Q. Do you recall his name, by the way?

14 A. No. I'm afraid I don't. I'm not very good at recalling names.

15 And we -- because we had been planning to do a story on the fire brigade

16 and the problems that they encountered in their work, as it happened that

17 night, there were no fires. And the fire brigade did not have to leave

18 their headquarters. And in the morning, we then returned to our working

19 base, which at that time was in the TV centre, which entailed us to drive

20 down the Marsal Tito barracks in the direction of the airport through

21 Marin Dvor Square, past the Marsal Tito barracks. And it was after that

22 we saw, as we were driving, that there was a fire in this apartment

23 block.

24 In front of the apartment block, actually on the street side, was

25 a lower building where shops had been located prior to the war, and we

Page 2124

1 were able to park our car behind those buildings because we saw as we

2 arrived that incendiary bullet rounds were still continuing to be fired at

3 this building, and it was these incendiary bullet rounds that had caused

4 these fires.

5 Q. If we can briefly return to the map, can you indicate on the map

6 with an arrow which directions these incendiary rounds as you call them

7 were fired from?

8 A. [Indicates]

9 Q. Perhaps, you can indicate again with the blue pen, just making an

10 arrow from the areas you thought the fire originated into the area you

11 described as a Y.

12 A. May I just make the point to the Court that this is very rough

13 because when a position that you're at is being actually shot at, there is

14 no reason for a journalist to stick his head up to try and find out

15 precisely where the gun is. You just don't do that. So I don't have a

16 precise position, but it was coming from that side, coming over our

17 heads.

18 MR. WAESPI: One moment, Your Honours.

19 Q. Mr. Van Lynden, how far away from the confrontation lines south

20 was the building located?

21 A. Not that far.

22 Q. Can you be more precise?

23 A. Maybe a couple of hundred metres.

24 Q. And do you recall from --

25 A. Maybe a little more.

Page 2125

1 Q. Do you recall from which side of the confrontation lines the fire

2 originated?

3 A. From the Bosnian Serb lines.

4 Q. Now, in your opinion, was this apartment block you just described

5 a military or civilian target?

6 A. A civilian target.

7 Q. And why do you come to this conclusion?

8 A. I come to that conclusion because we saw a lot of civilians

9 there. We spoke to them, and these people lived in this apartment block.

10 They had had their homes there. We filmed one man who was distraught

11 because all his possessions were lost in one of the fires, and there were

12 several different fires in this apartment block had been lost. We talked

13 to people also to check whether any outgoing fire had gone from this

14 apartment block.

15 Civilians in any war zone are always very wary of their property

16 being used by the military in any way whatsoever because they are afraid

17 that their opponents will then fire on that property. And the civilian

18 population in Sarajevo was no different to anywhere else. And it would

19 have been made -- we would have found out if that building was being used

20 by units of the Bosnian Army to fire on the other side. Everybody said

21 that there had been no fire, that they had been in the apartment block.

22 And the first thing that they knew anything was happening was when the

23 first incendiary rounds, and they were from the beginning incendiary

24 rounds, were fired at this apartment block.

25 Q. You just said a sentence ago there had been no fire, by that you

Page 2126

1 meant no outgoing fire.

2 Now, do you know how many civilians lived in that apartment block?

3 A. No, and I don't have a precise title -- a precise figure. But, I

4 mean, it was quite a big building. And I imagined that several hundred

5 people will have lived in that apartment block.

6 Q. Did you see any civilians getting out of the apartment block while

7 the fire was on?

8 A. Yes, I did.

9 Q. Can you describe a little bit more detail?

10 A. I saw -- sorry. I saw men, women, and children leaving the

11 apartment block. But using not the entrance towards the Marsal Tito

12 Bulevar, but on the other side of the building where they were not under

13 direct fire.

14 Q. Did you film the incident?

15 A. Yes, we did.

16 Q. Was there a time that the fire brigade came?

17 A. Yes, they came after we had arrived there. But yes, they did

18 come.

19 Q. And was the building still fired at while the fire brigade

20 attended the fire?

21 A. It was again fired at, yes.

22 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Waespi, we are at 10.30 now, and I would like to

23 have our first break. Would you please find a suitable moment for this

24 break. And apart from that, may I remind you, as you might know, this

25 Chamber assists the parties in keeping a close eye on the clock, that you

Page 2127

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Page 2128

1 used considerably more than 50 percent of your time estimate for this

2 witness.

3 So if you would please find a suitable moment, or when this is a

4 suitable moment, please indicate so.

5 MR. WAESPI: Thank you very much, Your Honour. Yes, I have also

6 passed more than half of my examination-in-chief. And we will play the

7 video of this incident I think right after the break. So I think it will

8 be a convenient time now.

9 JUDGE ORIE: It would be then a suitable moment. We'll adjourn

10 until 11.00.

11 --- Recess taken at 10.32 a.m.

12 --- On resuming at 11.02 a.m.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Pilipovic, I see that your colleague,

14 Mr. Piletta-Zanin, is not there. Is there any reason why we should not

15 proceed, or do you expect him to come soon?

16 MS. PILIPOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I expect my colleague

17 any minute. He's still in the Defence room. It's possible that he has

18 problems getting out. The doors were locked a moment ago when I was

19 there. But that should not be a problem. I think we can start.

20 JUDGE ORIE: Okay. Thank you very much. Then the witness may be

21 brought into the courtroom.

22 Mr. Waespi, you may proceed, unless there's any other --

23 MR. WAESPI: No, Your Honour.

24 JUDGE ORIE: Okay. Please proceed.

25 MR. WAESPI: Thank you, Your Honour.

Page 2129

1 Q. Mr. van Lynden, just one or perhaps two questions before we see

2 the video. Was there further firing into the building after the firemen

3 had successfully extinguished the fire or part of the fire?

4 A. They hadn't yet extinguished all the fires, but there was more

5 incendiary rounds fired into the building, yes. Firing continued while

6 the firemen were there.

7 Q. And compared to the location of the firemen, where did the

8 additional incendiary rounds go to? Below or above or beside?

9 A. Below, as far as we could witness.

10 MR. WAESPI: If the video could now be played. It's about, I

11 think, a minute clip, and there is a transcript which has been served to

12 the Defence, I think also to Your Honours.

13 JUDGE ORIE: I do not remember that we received a transcript of

14 the video. Oh, the registrar says we have, so this is -- oh, it

15 has -- it's available to us now.

16 Please proceed, Mr. Waespi.

17 MR. WAESPI: Yes. Thank you, Your Honour. Just for your

18 information, we only show the part where the building is seen on fire, and

19 that begins with -- after the Egyptian colonel. We won't show that. Just

20 it starts with van Lynden, and then the second paragraph, van Lynden. So

21 it's not the whole transcript but only the second part.

22 JUDGE ORIE: It's at 5:56, as far as I can see.

23 MR. WAESPI: Exactly, Your Honour.

24 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you. Please proceed.

25 MR. WAESPI: If the video could be shown now.

Page 2130

1 [Videotape played]

2 VAN LYNDEN: ... mirrored by the reality in the city. Serb

3 incendiary rounds, setting a string of flats ablaze in one apartment

4 block. A resident watches, distraught, his home and belongings gone.

5 Seconds later, further bursts of incendiary rounds crash into the building

6 or bounce off the wall into the street below. Wanton arson on a purely

7 civilian target. As ever, Sarajevo's remarkable firemen fight back,

8 getting their hoses to the flames for once unhampered by a cut in the

9 water supply. But for the fire chief, water is not the main concern. His

10 engines are running out of fuel and he tells us that he won't be able to

11 cope with another fire this day.

12 The fall of Otes and escalation of shelling here in the centre of

13 Sarajevo again underline the impotence of international efforts in

14 Bosnia. Ceasefires and political talks have led nowhere and won't until

15 the western world proves it has a true commitment in ending this war.

16 Aernout van Lynden, SkyNews, Sarajevo.

17 MR. WAESPI:

18 Q. Mr. Van Lynden, do you recognise this clip?

19 A. Yes, I do recognise this clip.

20 Q. Was that the footage which you had prepared for Sky News?

21 A. The footage, all that, the shots of the firemen, the shots of the

22 building from the ground were taken by George Davis, a Sky News

23 cameraman. The shots from further away when you see the building sideways

24 were taken from a cameraman of CNN from the Holiday Inn.

25 Q. Who was the elderly man on the clip?

Page 2131

1 A. He was a resident of this apartment block.

2 Q. And did you talk to him?

3 A. Yes, that's to say my producer talked to him. It was not a man

4 who spoke English or German or French or any other language that I'm

5 capable of speaking.

6 Q. And you talked to him and the other civilians at that scene. Did

7 they tell you what their feelings were?

8 A. Well, obviously they were distraught. They were also fearful. I

9 mean, those who were in the apartment block when the shooting began and

10 came out, then you are afraid, of course. Also, there was a clear sense

11 of -- I would call it impotence on their part. They feel that they cannot

12 do anything. They are no longer in control of their own lives, and things

13 are happening to them outside control. Most of us in our daily lives try

14 in one manner or another to have some control over the lives we lead.

15 These people in this situation no longer had that control, and that could

16 lead to a real feeling of despair.

17 Of course, they also suffered in other ways. They couldn't get

18 the food, the water, nor the heat. And this was already -- Sarajevo was

19 turning cold. So there were further reasons for their despair. But

20 certainly when a building that you've lived in and where you've built up a

21 home is then targeted in this manner, then obviously there is a great

22 feeling of anger. But above all, of despair.

23 Q. Now, can you tell us how large these incendiary rounds were? Were

24 they small ones or were they larger ones? Do you have an opinion on that?

25 A. As far as -- I mean, it's -- obviously, you don't pick one of them

Page 2132

1 up. But as you saw in the footage, one of them hit the building and then

2 bounced back directly over the heads of my cameraman and myself. I was

3 standing next to my cameraman when that happened. It's difficult to say

4 precisely, but these were roughly 15 centimetres, I would say. 10 to

5 15 centimetres.

6 Q. And given your military background, can you indicate to us what

7 sort of weaponry would have fired an incendiary round you've just

8 described of that size?

9 A. I should point out that in the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps, we

10 do not have incendiary rounds. I was aware that the Yugoslav Army did and

11 had seen them use these. You are talking from heavy machine-guns or

12 anti-aircraft guns. I mean this is quite large millimetres. This is not

13 from a standard Kalishnikov rifle, as far as I'm aware. I'm not an expert

14 on incendiary rounds because as I said, during my military time we in the

15 Netherlands do not have them.

16 Q. Let's talk now about a different subject. You had described

17 already artillery pieces you had seen when you interviewed General

18 Mladic. Just very briefly, have you seen other weaponry capable of

19 shelling?

20 A. Yes. As I think I have already described, on the road that you

21 take from Pale to get to Grbavica or Hrasno, you go over Mount Trebevic

22 and there were Serb positions there on which we did see heavier weaponry,

23 above all, mortars. And also inside the city, we saw mortars of various

24 calibre’s up to 120 millimetre. And I think I have already described that

25 I saw tanks that were stationed behind buildings in the Bosnian Serb-held

Page 2133

1 areas and which were occasionally used. I should add that I never saw

2 with my own eyes them being used. The only heavy vehicle that I actually

3 saw and that we filmed being used was an armoured personnel carrier with a

4 heavy machine-gun mounted on top of it, and that heavy machine-gun fired

5 towards the other side of Sarajevo.

6 Q. Did you see anti-aircraft guns?

7 A. Yes, I did. Truck-mounted, usually two-barreled guns, again, used

8 in a similar fashion to the armour in that they would be hidden behind

9 buildings and then brought out for use. But I never saw one actually

10 firing.

11 Q. Now, you have seen the topography of Sarajevo. You were standing

12 there with General Mladic. You have also been inside the city. Again,

13 from your experience there in Sarajevo, from your training, what's the

14 effect of topography on the use of auto weaponry use, in particular

15 shelling?

16 A. Obviously, for anyone bringing down heavier fire, either with

17 mortars or with artillery, the fact that you have direct sight, that you

18 have direct observation, makes it much more easy to have this fire

19 accurate. Anyone who is using artillery or mortars will tell you that it

20 will take at least three shells, unless you are very, very lucky, to hit

21 the target. Usually one shell will land too far or too short from its

22 target. The next one will overshoot in the opposite direction, and

23 therefore it's only the third that is likely to hit its target. It may

24 take more. But if you cannot actually see the target, and which, of

25 course, is possible with artillery that you are firing over a hill, it's

Page 2134

1 more difficult to observe. And the observers would have to be in a

2 different position.

3 Often, with the topography of Sarajevo, the Serb gunners could

4 directly see themselves what they were firing at. And therefore, it made

5 the situation quite different to those that I experienced in Beirut at the

6 various fronts during the Iran/Iraq war, or in other places in Bosnia.

7 Sarajevo was extraordinary as far as that's concerned because of the Serb

8 control of the high ground all the way around the city.

9 Q. Did you ever see mortar being used against a moving target?

10 A. Yes, we believe we did in the sense that we were the target.

11 Driving several times along the Marshal Tito Bulevar, we noticed mortar

12 bombs impact in front of or behind our vehicle. And it was my opinion

13 that what was happening was that the people in the hills above could

14 clearly see us moving and could work out how long it would take us from

15 getting from Point A to Point B. And would then put a mortar bomb in,

16 i.e., in a sense sniping with mortars. That's what I personally believe.

17 Q. Now, you described earlier just a few minutes ago the way

18 artillery is supposedly to be used, different steps, different shells, and

19 moving back and forwards. Have you seen the Bosnian Serb army using this

20 tactic?

21 A. It's not a tactic; it's the way you use artillery to hit the

22 target that you're aiming for. So you need observers. And it is

23 unlikely, unless you are very lucky, as I said before, that you hit your

24 target immediately. Specifically, in June 1992, from the vantage point

25 that we had in the building as we've described before, the former military

Page 2135

1 hospital now known as the State Hospital, I was able to see concentrated

2 Serb artillery fire on the Marshal Tito barracks that had been evacuated

3 by the Serb forces. And there what we saw was that the initial shells

4 landed long on the railways behind the barracks, and then were brought on

5 to the barracks, and then they found their target, and then there was

6 concentrated fire on that target. It was our opinion that in their

7 evacuation of the Marshal Tito barracks, they had not been able to

8 withdraw all their equipment. They wanted to clearly destroy the

9 equipment they had left behind and destroy the base.

10 It was extremely sustained fire which often went on all night. It

11 continued for several days. And it was, on the whole, extremely accurate

12 once the gunners had found their range, i.e., once after the initial

13 shells had landed long, they had brought the shells on to the target. But

14 simultaneously, absolutely simultaneously, I have seen fire raining down

15 all over Sarajevo, not in this same concentrated manner, which was clearly

16 just shell fire directed at the city with no military purpose, because if

17 it had had a military purpose, it would have been sustained fire at one

18 point.

19 Q. You were talking about the period of June, I assume, 1992. Have

20 you seen similar fire you just described later, when you were in Sarajevo?

21 A. At any period that we were in Sarajevo, apart from when I was

22 there in March 1994, there was always shell fire, but I have never

23 witnessed the kind of intense bombardment as -- and concentrated

24 bombardment as of the Marsal Tito barracks, apart from in June 1992. It

25 was sporadic, it was a few shells here and there, but it was never the

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Page 2137

1 kind of sustained fire that we saw then, and therefore it was our opinion

2 that this was fire not directed at a military goal but simply at the city

3 and the people living there.

4 Q. What was the effect of this system of firing you've just described

5 on the population, civilian population in the city?

6 A. The effect was to cause fear with anyone, because people feared

7 that whenever you went outside your house, you could -- you were in

8 danger; you were never safe. Even if there was a building between you and

9 the Serb forces, it meant that, with artillery or with mortars, you could

10 always be hit, because there was fire everywhere, and therefore people

11 were always afraid when they were outside. To a certain degree, humans

12 are adaptable and they get used to this. People learn to live with it.

13 But there was always fear whenever you went outside, and that was the case

14 for us as well. I mean, we had initially normal Volkswagen Golfs. Later

15 on we had armoured Land Rovers. But we always realised that any trip, you

16 were always taking a risk.

17 Q. Let's move on to a different, although related, subject, the

18 utilities. Who had, in your opinion, control over the utilities from

19 mid-September 1992 on? Perhaps even earlier, but I'm asking you

20 specifically about that period.

21 A. As the city was besieged, I believe that the control was in the

22 hands of those doing the besieging, that is, therefore, the Bosnian Serbs.

23 Q. Now, how about access to food and other basic utilities of daily

24 life for the civilian population? Did you ever make a report about that?

25 A. Yes, on various occasions. A city, of course, doesn't grow its

Page 2138

1 own food. It has to be brought in from outside. And therefore, once a

2 city is under siege, food becomes a scarce commodity, and you could see

3 that if you went to the markets. There were no shops left by the time I

4 arrived in Sarajevo in May 1992, or in the sense that they were closed

5 because they were empty, and the food that was available had to be

6 brought, in general, from outside. Of course, people, as the war

7 progressed and as the siege continued over three and a half years, those

8 lucky enough to have a spot of garden tried to grow some vegetables for

9 themselves, but many of the people of Sarajevo lived in apartment blocks

10 and therefore were not able to.

11 Q. Was there running water for the civilian population?

12 A. No. In that sense, that sometimes there was, but for long periods

13 there was not, and therefore that meant that people had to leave their

14 houses or apartments to fetch water at other points. But within the homes

15 there was often not running water. Even in the hospital it was often a

16 problem.

17 Q. What about in Pale?

18 A. In Pale, there were at times electricity cuts, but there was

19 always running water during those periods that I stayed there.

20 MR. WAESPI: One moment, please, Your Honour.

21 [Prosecution counsel confer]

22 MR. WAESPI:

23 Q. Did you ever make a report about the malnutrition of children?

24 A. Not only of children. What we looked at was how did the effect of

25 siege and the kind of diet -- I mean, a war diet affect the civilian

Page 2139

1 population. That meant that we interviewed the UNHCR that was bringing in

2 food, who immediately admitted that on no single day had they been able to

3 bring in enough food to feed the civilian population. And we talked to

4 professors, nutrition experts, people who dealt with the immunity system

5 and how the immunity system and people's -- the strength of people's

6 immunity system had been affected by not eating enough. And also it

7 included a visit to the chief of the maternity part of the Kosevo, the

8 academic hospital of Sarajevo, who showed us figures that, in his opinion,

9 because the mothers were undernourished, there were more stillborn babies,

10 that this had more than doubled since the siege began - and this report

11 was done towards the end of 1992 - and that more children were born who

12 were underweight, let us say. And again, he also reiterated the fact that

13 the immune system had been -- the strength of the immune system had

14 decreased because people were not getting enough food.

15 Q. Thank you, Mr. van Lynden. You said that you stayed a

16 considerable amount of your time in the State Hospital in terms of

17 accommodation. Was it shelled? And in particular, I'm interested in:

18 Was it ever shelled by multi-rocket launchers, or targeted?

19 A. The former military hospital is in the direct sight and line of

20 fire of - or was - of the Bosnian Serb forces, and at the beginning of the

21 war, even before I arrived in Sarajevo, it was repeatedly targeted. It

22 was also targeted with heavy weaponry. I can't say which -- when I saw

23 rooms that had been hit by heavy weaponry, whether this was an artillery

24 shell or what you call a multiple rocket launcher. While staying there, I

25 did see multiple-rocket-launcher fire coming from the top of the mountains

Page 2140

1 around Sarajevo and falling very close to the hospital. This is the

2 period that I have already described after the evacuation of the Marsal

3 Tito barracks. And there were certain moments that when we were filming

4 this at night, we feared that the hospital was going to get hit. As far

5 as I'm aware, it was not hit at that stage. The only larger projectile,

6 apart from gunfire, that hit the hospital while I was actually in it

7 occurred at the end of -- towards the end of 1992, when the hospital,

8 which had a generator and therefore functioning electricity and lifts, and

9 I was about to take the lift to the top floor when there was an extremely

10 large explosion and one of the lift shafts was hit, and we believe that

11 that was from tank fire.

12 Q. You mentioned the multi-rocket launchers that were firing. Do you

13 recall when that was, when you observed that?

14 A. June 1992. It was -- they were clearly visible then, and we

15 filmed them both in day and during the night.

16 Q. Have you seen them later as well?

17 A. The multiple rocket launchers, no, not that I can recall now.

18 There was artillery fire certainly. But I should maybe explain to the

19 Court that to most people it would seem a simple thing for a journalist,

20 for a television camera to film. But artillery fire, unless it is

21 sustained in one place, is extremely difficult to film. One shell landing

22 here and another shell landing 500 metres away makes it very difficult

23 work for the cameraman. We saw periods of extremely intense fire in which

24 the whole of Sarajevo, it seemed to us, came under fire, specifically in

25 the early days of June 1992. At other periods we did witness and see fire

Page 2141

1 on several districts, but it was never as intense, nor was it concentrated

2 fire. It was one or two, possibly rockets, more likely artillery shells,

3 that landed in one district. This was practically impossible for us to

4 film, and therefore we do not have the video evidence of it.

5 Q. While you were at the hospital, State Hospital, did you ever see a

6 sniper operating therefrom, or any other indications, like spent

7 cartridges, ammunition, that snipers were operating at the hospital?

8 A. No. I'm also -- when we first visited the hospital, and my

9 cameraman and I decided that this would be a good base, we were very

10 careful in checking whether this was in any way being used by the

11 military, because if we were going to set up a base on the top floor, we

12 didn't want to be on the top floor of a military establishment. And we

13 looked around. I even went up on the roof itself, which was quite

14 hazardous, because then you are in the line of fire. I could be observed

15 up there. I found no spent cartridges at any time, nor any military

16 personnel inside the hospital, apart from those brought in as casualties

17 of war.

18 Q. Have you been at in the Jewish cemetery in the first part of 1992?

19 A. Yes, I mean not actually in the cemetery because the cemetery was

20 a "no man's land" in a no-go area. But from both sides, from within the

21 city, from the Bosnian side therefore, we shall able to get to positions

22 to film it. And later on, as I described, in September 1992, and again in

23 February 1994, we were taken to the area on the Bosnian Serb side, and I

24 was able to see it then. I mean, the graves were clearly visible.

25 Q. Now, when you went to the Jewish cemetery or the surroundings

Page 2142

1 in -- the first time, did somebody accompany you?

2 A. When I went the first time was when I was inside the city. This

3 was in May 1992. And yes, we were accompanied by, as I recall, a

4 policeman.

5 Q. Now, did you ever meet Aleksic?

6 A. Yes, I'm aware of a man calling himself such. He also called

7 himself Vojvoda we were told. But the meeting was very short because on

8 seeing me, he pulled out his gun and told that if we didn't leave, he

9 would shoot me.

10 Q. Can you tell us the date?

11 A. This was February 1994.

12 Q. And who was Aleksic? You said he was a warlord. Why did it come

13 about that you wanted to meet him?

14 A. I don't think I called him a warlord.

15 Q. Sorry, Vojvoda.

16 A. He called himself or his people called him a Vojvoda. What had

17 occurred was that we were in Pale. I was based in Pale. NATO had issued

18 its first ultimatum to the Bosnian Serbs in conjunction to the situation

19 in Sarajevo which followed after the market massacre. We heard that one

20 of the troops of Mr. Aleksic had been killed, and that there would be a

21 funeral. With what is known as a minder, a member of the Bosnian Serb

22 so-called Ministry of Information, and with my crew, at that time a wholly

23 Serb crew, a cameraman from Belgrade and a producer from Belgrade, we went

24 down to Grbavica and then drove along towards the Jewish cemetery to what

25 our minder said was the headquarters of Mr. Aleksic. And there, we found

Page 2143

1 that he was not there, but men that he commanded and who said that they

2 were commanded by him said that we should wait. This included a number of

3 Russians who said that they had volunteered for the war, and even one

4 Japanese gentleman who described himself as a Japanese Chetnik, referring

5 to the name of Serb nationalists who had fought in the Second World War.

6 Q. Do you have an opinion as to which command --

7 MR. WAESPI: I'm sorry, Your Honour.

8 Q. Do you have an opinion under which command and control Aleksic and

9 his soldiers were from what you saw at that time?

10 A. Unlike the other soldiers that I have described previously, these

11 people were not wearing JNA uniforms. They were dressed in various ways.

12 Some of the weaponry I saw was not Kalishnikovs but other types of

13 weaponry, G3s, rifles produced in the west rather than in the former

14 Yugoslavia, which had a large arms industry. But I have no doubt at all,

15 and this was also confirmed to us by the minder from Pale, that these men

16 were under the control of the Bosnian Serb army, and that they were not a

17 freelance unit doing whatever they liked.

18 Q. And what led you to that conclusion?

19 A. As I said, this was a Bosnian Serb talking to me who had been in

20 the Bosnian Serb armed forces, which he admitted to us. Apart from that,

21 at this time, firing had ceased. There were negotiations going on. And

22 it could be that a unit that was not under military control would break

23 these rules. As far as I'm aware, also from what we heard afterwards, at

24 no time at that time was the cease-fire broken.

25 Q. What did the minder from Pale actually say? Do you recall his

Page 2144

1 words?

2 A. When I asked who does this man fall -- I mean under whose command,

3 he said, "Under the commanders of the army in this district".

4 Q. The market massacre you referred to a couple of minutes ago, do

5 you mean by that the Markale shelling incident of February 1994?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. In that time --

8 MR. WAESPI: And I'm about to conclude in a few minutes,

9 Your Honour.

10 Q. In that time, did you ever cross Marin Dvor Square? And I can

11 maybe make it more precise in terms of dating. After February 1994, the

12 peace agreement.

13 A. Well, it wasn't a peace agreement, but an accord was reached

14 whereby Russian forces of UNPROFOR went into the Serb-held districts of

15 Sarajevo whereby the Bosnian Serb forces agreed to withdraw their heavy

16 armour and artillery in the so-called 20-kilometre exclusion zone, or to

17 leave their armour at collection points manned by UNPROFOR. And all

18 shooting in Sarajevo stopped. I had been initially in Pale.

19 After this agreement was reached, I went into Sarajevo. And in

20 March did, indeed, for the first time during the war walk across Marin

21 Dvor Square, which would have been a ridiculous thing to do at any other

22 time. But we were not fired at and we were not in danger.

23 Q. What was the position -- or what would have been the danger of

24 crossing Marin Dvor? To what positions was it exposed to, in your opinion

25 or experience?

Page 2145

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Page 2146

1 A. Marin Dvor Square was always one of the most dangerous places to

2 be in Sarajevo. We always drove very quickly, indeed. For those staying

3 at the Holiday Inn, which I never did, it was always a dangerous place to

4 get into. There was an underground parking, but practically always there

5 was fire every single day on Marin Dvor Square from the Bosnian Serb

6 positions.

7 Q. Can you specify from which part of the Bosnian Serb positions

8 would Marin Dvor be observed or fired at?

9 A. From Grbavica.

10 MR. WAESPI: Now just one or two more questions, Your Honour, to

11 conclude.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, please.

13 MR. WAESPI:

14 Q. The first one deals with your colleagues. How many journalists

15 worked in Sarajevo, and where were they from, in the times you have been

16 there?

17 A. When I initially went into Sarajevo, as I think I previously said,

18 there were very few journalists left. Most of them had fled from the

19 city. There were a few photographers left from England, America, and New

20 Zealand, as I recall at the time. Other periods, there were hundreds of

21 journalists in Sarajevo. And I imagine that if you take the war as a

22 whole and the three and a half years of siege as a whole, then probably

23 thousands of journalists passed through Sarajevo from all over the world,

24 specifically from Europe, but from every single continent. There were

25 Japanese journalists, Americans, South Americans, but those permanently

Page 2147

1 there were usually from Western Europe.

2 Q. And my last question would be, after all you have said, and based

3 also on the visits you made to the troops, discussions with the soldiers

4 and officers, did you come to a conclusion about the discipline of the

5 Bosnian Serb Army?

6 A. I made some conclusions, yes. That the officers were professional

7 officers of the JNA, that they try to keep their men under control. One

8 problem that they did have was the fact that there was somewhat, to my

9 amazement, always alcohol at most of these positions. And this, of

10 course, is not a good thing as far as discipline is concerned if someone

11 has drunk a lot of Slivovitz or rakija, you are less likely to be so

12 disciplined. This was a problem also we had noticed at other times in

13 other places, both during 1991 and in other parts of Bosnia.

14 Also, many, of course, of the normal soldiers were, as I said

15 before, they were conscripts; they were not professionals. Not all of

16 them were particularly happy about being there. But the officer corps was

17 professional, knew what it was doing, and most of the time the soldiers

18 themselves did come under that discipline.

19 MR. WAESPI: Perhaps to conclude, if the witness could be shown

20 the map again. And I also have a correction to make about the map. I'm

21 told by my case manager that the number -- but we could perhaps at the

22 same time bring the map -- the map is there already.

23 The correct number would be P3644.VL.

24 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, that's the original number given and added the

25 name of the witness. Yes.

Page 2148

1 MR. WAESPI: Thank you.

2 Q. Mr. Van Lynden, if you could indicate the Marin Dvor Square and

3 the Jewish cemetery. And again, if you could mark them in blue, perhaps

4 with an "M" where Marin Dvor Square is, and a "J" where the Jewish

5 cemetery is located.

6 A. Sorry, this has to be on this side of the Miljacka River. It is

7 on the southern side of the Miljacka River.

8 Q. For the record, the witness just made a "J" with a quite harsh

9 little corner as opposed to a smooth "J", and he makes an arrow to the

10 southeastern direction indicating that it should be moved into a southern

11 direction.

12 And please, could you draw a circle around that Jewish cemetery.

13 A. [Marks]

14 Q. And he just indicated now a circle around this arrow. Thank you

15 very much.

16 MR. WAESPI: Your Honours, that concludes the

17 examination-in-chief. We will, I understand, tender the exhibits after

18 cross-examination or any eventual re-examination, unless you direct

19 otherwise.

20 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. The admission into evidence of the map shown

21 until now will finally be decided upon after cross-examination and, if

22 necessary, re-examination of the witness.

23 Ms. Pilipovic, are you ready to cross-examine the witness?

24 Mr. Piletta-Zanin, you're standing up.

25 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. President. With your

Page 2149

1 authorisation actually, I would like to cross-examine this witness.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, of course. It's up to the Defence team who will

3 cross-examine the witness.

4 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Otherwise, Ms. Pilipovic will

5 possibly have a few additional questions. However, the problem we have is

6 a technical problem, Mr. President, and I would like to tell you about

7 it.

8 The witness has indicated certain things which meant that I went

9 to the Defence Chamber in order to get the material which I had in my

10 laptop. However, the -- there has been a problem with the printer, so now

11 things that I had to print I was not able to do since these pieces of

12 evidence [as interpreted]. And thanks to the Prosecution, would it be

13 possible -- since I had technical problems with printing, would it be

14 possible to have another piece of evidence? And I have a reference number

15 naturally.

16 JUDGE ORIE: I changed from language, Mr. Piletta-Zanin, so I'll

17 just try to read. I lost a few lines.

18 Yes. Could the Prosecution assist? I mean, I do understand that

19 it's a matter of just printing or having printed some documents. Would it

20 be possible for you to proceed, or just write on a piece of paper numbers

21 of pages that you would like to have printed? And perhaps the Prosecution

22 team could assist you.

23 MR. WAESPI: If you could describe what kind of exhibit you would

24 like us to print and also give exact details, date or any number the

25 Prosecution has attached to it. Thank you.

Page 2150

1 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Yes, of course. It's just one

2 page, and the number is ERN R004-46717. It is a letter signed by General

3 Morillon. The letter is addressed to Mr. Alija Izetbegovic. And this is

4 for technical reasons that I have to require, if you would be so kind to

5 do it.

6 JUDGE ORIE: [Previous translation continues] ... the Prosecution

7 will assist you. So the number is clear to you? The number is not

8 clear? I would invite you just to write it down on a piece of paper and

9 give it to the Prosecution so that there will be no misunderstanding.

10 Yes, please proceed, Mr. Piletta-Zanin.

11 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Thank you.

12 Cross-examined by Mr. Piletta-Zanin:

13 Q. Baron van Lynden, hello. Thank you for coming here as a witness.

14 You gave us a statement. The first statement that I'm going to refer to,

15 is this a statement that was taken on the 8th and 10th of May, 2001, and

16 on the 28th and 29th of September, 2001?

17 A. I'm aware of this statement that you're referring to.

18 Can we get my screen away from the map and back to the -- thank

19 you. Go ahead.

20 Q. Is this -- was this a draft or was this your definitive statement?

21 A. It was a partial statement written up by an investigator of this

22 Tribunal. It's not a statement written by me, no. I haven't written my

23 book yet about the war in Bosnia.

24 Q. So just to make things clear: As we read this statement, this

25 written statement, terms like, and I'm quoting, "war of terror," and these

Page 2151

1 are terms used by the investigator?

2 A. No. Those were also words used by myself.

3 Q. I heard in your answer "equally." Can you confirm -- "also words

4 used by myself." Could you answer by yes or no?

5 JUDGE ORIE: [Previous translation continues] ... explain what he

6 said, Mr. Piletta-Zanin. You can't force him to say yes or no. Some

7 things are a bit more complicated than just yes or no.

8 A. What I was trying to say was that the investigator wrote down

9 words I had used. A phrase like "war of terror" was a phrase used by me.

10 But the statement is not, I mean, my full memoirs of what I witnessed

11 during either 1991 or thereafter.

12 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation]

13 Q. Thank you, sir. You stated a moment ago -- and I am referring

14 here to page 28, line 16. I believe that was 10 hours, 3 minutes, 57

15 seconds. In answering to a question, you said that the snipers were

16 firing on Mujahedins. Is this the way you recall it?

17 A. Yes. We asked -- this is the man with the machine-gun in Hrasno

18 that had opened fire. We asked him what he had been shooting at, and his

19 answer was he had been shooting at the Mujahedin.

20 Q. Sir, is it true to say that in your written statement that we just

21 referred to, you said, and I'm quoting, "shooting at Mujahedin snipers"?

22 And I'm insisting on the word "snipers." I can let you see your own

23 statement if you like.

24 A. I don't have the statement in front of me, but if that's -- if you

25 say that that's what I've written, then that's -- and that -- I had

Page 2152

1 obviously signed this statement, then that must be the case.

2 JUDGE ORIE: I would suggest that you quote literally this part so

3 that the Prosecution can check on the part of the statement you're

4 referring to.

5 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] If you like, I can let the

6 witness see the document.

7 JUDGE ORIE: [Previous translation continues] ... read it out. If

8 you just indicate the page and then the Prosecution can verify.

9 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] I am quoting, in page 12.

10 This is from a statement which we have referred to, and I'm now quoting:

11 [In English] "What they were shooting at was ..." Sorry. "It." "I was

12 given the stock phrase that they were merely shooting at Mujahedin

13 snipers." [Interpretation] I am repeating: [In English] "Shooting at

14 Mujahedin snipers." [Interpretation] At the end of page 12.

15 Q. My question is the following: The answer that you were given,

16 that they were, therefore, shooting at snipers from the other side --

17 MR. WAESPI: Your Honour --

18 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, please.

19 MR. WAESPI: Just one point. Perhaps my friend could quote the

20 whole sentence and starting with "When asked what ..." So the witness

21 sees it in context or -- and not just one or two words. Thank you.

22 JUDGE ORIE: Would it be possible for you, Mr. Piletta-Zanin, to

23 quote a bit more of the context? But of course, we can't just read the

24 whole page. Is there any relevance in the -- if you've got the context in

25 front of you, could you please indicate what exactly you would like

Page 2153

1 to -- where to start and where to stop and how many lines these will be.

2 MR. WAESPI: Just the whole sentence.

3 JUDGE ORIE: The whole sentence. Okay.

4 Please, Mr. Piletta-Zanin, would you please quote in the context

5 as asked by the Prosecution.

6 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] This is what I just did, but I

7 can do it again. And if you like, I can read the previous sentence as

8 well.

9 JUDGE ORIE: [Previous translation continues] ... ask the

10 Prosecution to tell you exactly --

11 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] All right. So this is the

12 last paragraph on page 12 of your statement, which says the following:

13 [In English] "They had been given orders that allowed them to engage

14 targets of their choice. When asked what they were shooting it" - I read

15 it as it is - "it --"

16 THE WITNESS: "At."

17 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: "At." I read as it is. "... at, I was given

18 the stock phrase that they were merely shooting at Mujahedin snipers." Of

19 course, it's "at" instead of "it," but that's something ...

20 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Please put your question to the witness,

21 Mr. Piletta-Zanin.

22 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation]

23 Q. I read "it" because that's what it says, but the question is the

24 following: So it is true to say that in the answer to the question that

25 you asked, you were told that these soldiers were firing at snipers, not

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1 just at Mujahedin?

2 A. No. The two are not separate issues. It's one phrase. It's not

3 we were shooting at Mujahedin and snipers; we were shooting at Mujahedin

4 snipers.

5 JUDGE ORIE: I do understand that the text that has been quoted to

6 you that they were shooting at Mujahedin snipers and not just at

7 Mujahedin, that is -- the answer quoted to you is the correct answer and

8 the answer given by you during testimony that they were shooting Mujahedin

9 is an incomplete answer. Is that true?

10 THE WITNESS: No. What I'm saying here is that I'm not -- I

11 think -- as I understood the question, that they weren't just shooting at

12 the Mujahedin; they were also shooting at snipers.

13 JUDGE ORIE: No. The question is what the answer is that you

14 heard at that time from the man you put the question to. Did he say,

15 "We're shooting at the Mujahedin," or did he say, "We are shooting at the

16 Mujahedin snipers"?

17 THE WITNESS: As I recall, on that occasion he said "Mujahedin

18 snipers." At other moments people simply used the word "Mujahedin."

19 JUDGE ORIE: Does that clarify the issue you're raising,

20 Mr. Piletta-Zanin? Or if there's any additional question, please proceed.

21 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] On this point, no, but I

22 believe that there is a difference in what the witness stated this morning

23 and what he stated later.

24 JUDGE ORIE: [Previous translation continues] ...

25 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Thank you very much. Thank

Page 2156

1 you.

2 Q. Baron van Lynden, let me return to the question of snipers. And I

3 don't think I heard it from you, but is it true, or do you know if there

4 were sniper units on the side of the Bosnian army?

5 A. Yes, there were snipers in the Bosnian army.

6 Q. Thank you. Thank you for your answer. Just to clarify and

7 specify one point: You were talking about the Mujahedin and you said that

8 you had been to Afghanistan. Is it true to say that when we say

9 "Mujahedin," we are, in principal, talking about the combatants of the

10 holy war? And I'm talking in general.

11 A. The word "Mujahedin" means holy warrior. Yes, you're absolutely

12 right. However, it was the Afghan resistance where for the first time in

13 the 1980s the term was widely heard of -- they called themselves the

14 Mujahedin, or in singular, a Mujahed. I have never, throughout my years

15 in Bosnia, heard any member of the Bosnian army refer to himself as a

16 Mujahed or his troops as Mujahedin.

17 Q. You said, sir, also in your written statement that the schools had

18 been closed. Could you confirm this before the Chamber, the schools in

19 Sarajevo, of course.

20 A. At the periods that I was in Sarajevo, as far as we were informed,

21 the schools were closed. I went to a number of schools on a number of

22 occasions, and we never found any pupils there.

23 Q. Baron, you also said this morning, and in your written statement,

24 that you were not satisfied with your first choice of accommodation in

25 Sarajevo and that you changed your accommodation. Could you confirm that?

Page 2157

1 A. Yes, that's right. When I arrived there in May 1992 --

2 Q. Thank you. Thank you for your answer.

3 You also indicated that one of the reasons for which you were

4 dissatisfied was the presence in the vicinity of what, in French, we call

5 the headquarters, HQ.

6 A. We were in a building, as I described it, which later became the

7 building that Generals Morillon and Roso and others stayed in. It was not

8 "the" headquarters, but it was a building used by what was known at that

9 stage of the conflict as I think the territorial forces of the Bosnians,

10 and it was one of their headquarters. And therefore, we felt that staying

11 in this building, we were close to potential target.

12 Apart from that, there are other reasons, as I have already

13 described. There was a relatively low building. I could not work there

14 at night. If I am in a low building and shells are falling around, like

15 many other people, I became frightened, and that's why we sought a

16 different place to work at at night.

17 Q. Baron, what was the distance between what you have just been

18 describing, that is to say, the QG or [Quatier General], and where you

19 moved to?

20 A. You're referring to the military hospital, the former military

21 hospital now known as the state hospital?

22 Q. No, no, that wasn't my question. I do apologise, sir.

23 You were talking about the HQ, and you mentioned a moment ago what

24 was your first place of accommodation, which you refused. Now, between

25 those two points, Point A and Point B, what was the distance between your

Page 2158

1 first initial accommodation and the HQ?

2 A. I didn't refuse it. I simply moved. I left my things there

3 throughout the period I was there in May and early June. The distance

4 would have been a few hundred metres. I mean, there's a park around this

5 building, and it's a couple of hundred, maybe two, three hundred metres.

6 Q. Sir, could you be more precise with respect to the distance, to

7 the best of your recollections?

8 A. Well, it's not an area I walked in. We drove in Sarajevo. So

9 it was the next building. It was outside the park. We didn't initially

10 know what this building was. We discovered later that it was a building

11 used by, as I say -- I think called the territorial defence forces of

12 Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was a couple of hundred metres away.

13 Q. Very well. Thank you. If I understood you correctly, it is that

14 distance of several hundred metres with respect to a potentially military

15 facility that motivated your move, I mean the dangers that this implied of

16 having something close by like that?

17 A. No. The principal reason why we moved is I couldn't work there.

18 There was shelling happening every night in Sarajevo during this period,

19 and I wanted to be able to film it. And I could not do this from this

20 building. That is the principal reason. But there was an added reason

21 because if I had remained in this building, shells could have -- I mean,

22 the -- this base of the territorial defence forces could have become a

23 place of attack, and that was another reason. But the main reason was I

24 couldn't work and do the filming that I wished to do. We wanted to find a

25 high building.

Page 2159

1 Q. Baron, do you know of other headquarters which might have been

2 situated within the urban limits of Sarajevo?

3 A. Yes. At different times of the war, there were different

4 buildings that we went to to have contacts with military officers of the

5 Bosnian side. So I'm aware of that there were different offices used

6 within the confines that you mentioned, yes.

7 Q. Could you please tell us what areas or what types of areas?

8 A. In the city centre, relatively close to the Bosnian Presidency,

9 and then there were other headquarters further out of -- away from the

10 city centre that I am aware of.

11 Q. I might ask you to indicate this to us on a map later on, but what

12 types of installations were these? You mentioned several types of

13 locations and military facilities, installations. What types of these

14 were you able to see in Sarajevo?

15 A. I don't understand [Quartier General].

16 Q. That means headquarters, sorry, headquarters, [Quartier General].

17 A. You are only referring to the Bosnian side, not the Serb side.

18 Q. Yes.

19 A. The headquarters that we saw were headquarters with offices,

20 possibly operations rooms where operations were planned, but we were

21 obviously not allowed in those. And offices where I could meet either

22 the -- there was a press and information service of the Bosnian -- or

23 officers, including the commanding officer of the Bosnian Army. But this

24 is later on, who I met in -- at the beginning of 1995 at Oslobodenje. I

25 went to his office, and that was in the centre of Sarajevo.

Page 2160

1 Q. Thank you for your answer, sir. I may have misphrased my

2 question. Let me try to rephrase it. What type of buildings? What type

3 of installations or locations were there, to the best of your knowledge?

4 A. Excuse me, these were normal buildings, office buildings. As far

5 as I could judge, these had all previously been office. But also as far

6 as I could judge, they had not previously been military offices.

7 Q. Thank you for your answer.

8 Baron, I think I heard you mention that you had been a 2nd

9 Lieutenant in the Dutch army, and I'm now going to ask you a question

10 bearing that fact in mind. Do you know what was the number of personnel

11 in Sarajevo within the so-called Bosnian army? What was the strength of

12 that army in Sarajevo?

13 A. Firstly, I was not there as a Dutch military officer or as a

14 member of any kind of military force or of UNPROFOR, and that has to be

15 made perfectly clear. I left the Dutch military in 1978 before any

16 misunderstanding. Apart from that, I was not in the army; I was in the

17 marine corps.

18 As far as the number of troops, we were never given any figures of

19 that nature by anyone on the Bosnian side or the Bosnian authorities,

20 either civilian or military. I knew the first -- the commander of the 1st

21 Corps, as the unit was called, Mustafa Hajrulahovic. He never gave me

22 figures of that nature. And I couldn't give you a figure of that nature.

23 Certainly within the 1st Corps, I would imagine there were several

24 brigades and several thousand men, but I can't give you a precise figure.

25 You would have to ask somebody from UNPROFOR that kind of question.

Page 2161

1 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for the counsel, please.

2 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] My apologies.

3 Q. Baron, you have already partially responded to my next question,

4 but let me try to be more specific. You told us that there was the

5 1st Corps of the army in Sarajevo and that there were several brigades

6 within that corps. Could you tell us what would have been the strength of

7 such a brigade? Or rather, generally speaking, what is the strength of a

8 brigade?

9 A. When the war began, there was no Bosnian army. And you should

10 realise that in asking these questions. Therefore, while, during the war,

11 the Bosnian army tried to organise itself along the classical lines of the

12 army, along -- in fact, along the ways that most of its officers who had

13 been formerly in the JNA had been taught to do. Unit strength was often

14 quite different than I would expect.

15 I would expect a brigade to include four, maybe five battalions;

16 maybe less, it depends. Different armies do it in a different way. Each

17 battalion would be made up of three or four companies. These companies

18 would usually have a strength of anywhere between 150 and 180 men. This

19 was not always the case either on the Bosnian side or on the Bosnian Serb

20 side. So, I mean, it's an impossible question that you're asking. I

21 can't give those precise figures, because you're also dealing,

22 specifically on the Bosnian side, with an army which developed as the war

23 went along. So at different times, the figures would have been

24 different.

25 Q. I fully understand that, Baron, but perhaps when you don't know

Page 2162

1 something, you can simply respond by saying "I don't know." I'm saying

2 this only for practical purposes so that we can move on.

3 I'm now going to refer myself to something that you testified

4 about this morning, in particular, what you said at 9.26.12. I believe we

5 were on page 11 of the Livenote. You stated that "Serbs had scattered

6 their artillery pieces because they were afraid that they had spread

7 them" -- "actually because they were afraid that their opponents could

8 return fire." That is, that they were fearful of being hit.

9 My question in relation to that is as follows: Can I, therefore,

10 conclude, that the Bosnian army also had artillery pieces at its disposal?

11 A. First things first: The position was a normal military position.

12 If the Bosnian Serbs had stuck all their artillery together, it would have

13 been outrageous. And I wouldn't expect an army led by professional

14 soldiers to have done that.

15 Secondly, did they have artillery? Hardly. They did. I am aware

16 that they did have heavy mortars. I am referring to 120 millimetre

17 mortars. I never personally saw any artillery of the Bosnian army inside

18 Sarajevo. But I did see 120 millimetre mortars because at a certain

19 moment in February 1994, there were also weapon collection points set up

20 in Sarajevo. And I visited one of those once I reached the city. But I

21 never saw any artillery.

22 Q. Baron Van Lynden, haven't you ever seen, yes or no, a tank at the

23 Bosnian army side?

24 A. Yes, but a tank couldn't have fired at this artillery position.

25 Only artillery could have fired back.

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Page 2164

1 Q. Very well. I agree. But I think I can conclude from your answer,

2 and I should like to ask you to confirm that, that the Bosnian army troops

3 had at least a tank.

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. Could you tell us, if you know, what type of tank that was?

6 A. As far as I'm aware, it was a T65. No M84s. The Yugoslav version

7 of the T72.

8 Q. Thank you, Baron.

9 Let me now move to an incident that you have spoken about, the

10 buildings, the apartment blocks situated along Marsal Tito Bulevar. When

11 you gave your written statement which you subsequently signed, you

12 indicated to the interviewer that the building that you had seen had

13 already been on fire. Is it correct?

14 Baron, am I right in saying that, therefore, consequently, you

15 were not able to see the beginning of the attack?

16 A. You're absolutely right. I mean, there was fire -- I mean smoke

17 was already rising.

18 Q. Yes, yes, I understand what you mean. Thank you.

19 Since you didn't see the beginning of the attack, am I correct in

20 saying that you were not able to see what could have happened before the

21 incident, just before the incident?

22 A. As I said, I was in a car driving -- yes. But as I've also

23 explained, we asked.

24 Q. Yes, I'm also trying to be as brief as possible, Baron. I hope

25 you understand me.

Page 2165

1 In your statement, you also said - and I should like to have your

2 confirmation - of that, that as far as this particular incident is

3 concerned, one could not completely exclude the possibility that the

4 building was being used for sniper fire.

5 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, please, Mr. Waespi.

6 MR. WAESPI: Your Honour, if the Defence would like the witness to

7 comment, make a comment on what he said in the witness statement, that he

8 either be shown the witness statement so he can see it or that he just

9 read out the one sentence in full of which you are referring to.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, that's preferable. I do agree with you,

11 Mr. Waespi. On the other hand, if you could check and if there's no

12 dispute as to the correctness of the summary which is contained in the

13 question, I'd rather not to come back to it later.

14 But in general, I do agree with you that we prefer literal

15 quoting. And Mr. Piletta-Zanin does know that.

16 MR. WAESPI: Your Honours, I think it's an important --

17 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, Mr. Waespi.

18 MR. WAESPI: I think it's an important issue, so I would rather

19 have him quote the one or two sentences.

20 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

21 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Mr. President, maybe we could

22 be allowed to show the document to the witness. He can perhaps identify

23 his signature on the document and read aloud the portion in question. It

24 is a matter of several lines. By proceeding that way, we will

25 authenticate the document and the witness will be able to read directly

Page 2166

1 from the document.

2 JUDGE ORIE: As a matter of fact, we had some discussions about

3 context of statements. Statements will have to be either marked for

4 identification or to be tendered into evidence. So if it would be

5 possible just to read the lines relevant to your question, that would be

6 highly preferable, in my view. But if you insist, of course, I can't keep

7 you off from tendering the document into evidence.

8 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] I would prefer, Mr. President,

9 for the witness to read the relevant passage. We will thereby be able to

10 confirm what he had declared.

11 JUDGE ORIE: This Chamber cannot check whether this is a correct

12 reading or not, since we have not the document. So if the Prosecution and

13 the Defence -- I mean, you have to go there, you have to indicate, you

14 have to give it to the usher, which is highly impractical. If you state

15 just the lines you're referring to and if the Prosecution checks whether

16 this is a literal quoting, then we can continue. That's what I really

17 prefer. And I think the Prosecution has at its desk the statement, or

18 not?

19 MR. WAESPI: Yes, we do.

20 JUDGE ORIE: Okay. So please quote, Mr. Piletta-Zanin.

21 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: Okay. [Interpretation] Do you want me to give

22 the document to the Prosecution or --

23 JUDGE ORIE: [Previous translation continues] ...

24 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation]

25 Q. Page 10, you stated, sir, and I quote: [In English] "... the use

Page 2167

1 of this building by ABiH snipers. There is no way, in my opinion, that

2 the attack could have been justifiable military action." [Interpretation]

3 I've just quoted from your statement.

4 JUDGE ORIE: [Previous translation continues] ... is not complete

5 in this respect. Could you please read the line again, Mr. Piletta-Zanin.

6 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: Sorry.

7 Q. "One cannot exclude the use ..." So I check with the transcript.

8 "... the use of this building by ABiH snipers. There is no way, in my

9 opinion, that the attack could have been a justifiable military action."

10 A. I stand by what I said then.

11 Q. [Interpretation] Thank you very much. Therefore, there must have

12 been a theoretical possibility for such a battalion [as interpreted] in

13 Sarajevo to have been used as a sniper position by the Bosnian army.

14 A. The translation here is all over the place, because you mean

15 batiment, not battalion, I take it. It's written --

16 Q. [In English] I mean batiment.

17 A. You mean building.

18 Q. I mean buildings, of course.

19 A. Yes. Well, the translation is incorrect. Yes, there is

20 absolutely a theoretical possibility that such buildings could have been

21 used by snipers of the Bosnian army. I can't exclude that, no. That's

22 what I wrote in the statement.

23 Q. That's okay. That's okay. I didn't -- [Interpretation] Baron van

24 Lynden, you have spoken about an attack on the UNIS company buildings in

25 Sarajevo in your statement; is that correct? Sir, could you please tell

Page 2168

1 us whether this UNIS towers were indeed high-rise buildings?

2 A. Yes, they were high-rise buildings.

3 Q. Could you perhaps tell us how many floors there were,

4 approximately? Approximately, please.

5 A. Approximately 35, 40. I don't -- I mean, I didn't count the

6 floors.

7 Q. Thank you for your answer, Baron. Were they positioned in such a

8 way that one could have a very good view of the city from there? I'm

9 still talking about the UNIS towers.

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Could one imagine the possibility that these buildings could have

12 been used as firing positions?

13 A. You could imagine it, but I actually went into one of them two

14 days before the Marsal Tito barracks were evacuated and, as I recall now,

15 four or five days before one of the UNIS towers was almost completely

16 destroyed by fire. There was a problem if you used it as a shoot-out. As

17 far as I could see, all the windows were fixed. It was one of these

18 modern blocks relying on air-conditioning. And apart from that, I never,

19 at any time when we were staying in the military hospital, or what later

20 became known as the State Hospital, which is very close by the two UNIS

21 towers, I never saw any outgoing fire from either of them.

22 They could also have been used, just to make the point more

23 clearly, while the Marsal Tito barracks were still inhabited by forces of

24 the Bosnian Serbs. They could have been used to shoot into the military

25 barracks, because they had a direct view inside those barracks. And when

Page 2169

1 we went into the UNIS towers, it was for the reason to be able to film

2 inside the Marsal Tito barracks, which we did. But as I mentioned, we

3 couldn't open the windows. We had to film through the glass.

4 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Piletta-Zanin, we are at a point where we should

5 have a break. Would you please find a suitable moment somewhere in the

6 next one or two minutes.

7 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] This would be a convenient

8 moment, and we will be able to discuss this problem concerning exhibits

9 with the Prosecution.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Before we have a break, I noticed that sometimes

11 there emerges some kind of a debate between the witness and the Defence,

12 and I would ask the witness to give answers to what the Defence has asked,

13 and if there's anything additional which is of such an importance that it

14 should be said, that you address the Chamber and ask whether, apart from

15 having given the answer to the Defence, you could make any additional

16 remarks. But I'd like to prevent debate between counsel and witnesses.

17 So we'll then adjourn until 5 minutes to 1.00.

18 --- Recess taken at 12.35 p.m.

19 --- On resuming at 12.57 p.m.

20 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Piletta-Zanin, I hope that the copying problem

21 has been solved. Please proceed.

22 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

23 Q. Baron van Lynden, I would like to return to some technical

24 questions. Did you notice what type of uniforms were worn by the Bosnian

25 army?

Page 2170

1 A. At different moments, different uniforms.

2 Q. Did this Bosnian army also have, among its staff, among its

3 troops, professional officers?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. You mentioned a moment ago, Baron van Lynden, a name in relation

6 to the 1st Corps of the army stationed in Sarajevo, and these professional

7 officers, did they -- they normally came from the former JNA, from the

8 former Yugoslav People's Army. I am referring in particular to what you

9 declared regarding the 1st Corps of the army.

10 A. Yes. As I am aware. Mustafa Hajrulahovic had served as a

11 professional officer in the Yugoslav People's Army, and other officers had

12 also served in that army. I'm not aware of them having served in any

13 other army.

14 Q. Sir, I asked you a moment ago several questions regarding some

15 facilities or buildings of HQs in the city of Sarajevo. Do you remember?

16 For the transcript, could you please say your answer.

17 A. Yes, I remember you asking the question.

18 Q. Thank you. Would you be in a position to indicate for us on a map

19 these locations regarding the headquarters?

20 A. I'm certainly willing to try. As I said before, there are several

21 buildings. They weren't always headquarters. They could be local

22 headquarters, let's say. And I could certainly try, but I'm not sure

23 that -- you know, how accurate I would be.

24 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Mr. President, would it be

25 possible to have a map available to the witness?

Page 2171

1 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

2 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] And perhaps the witness could

3 use a different colour, perhaps black.

4 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Usher, would you --

5 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] The Defence has nothing

6 against the colour black.

7 THE WITNESS: If I may, Your Honour --

8 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, please.

9 THE WITNESS: -- just make the point that this is a very rough

10 map. I mean, that is not a map that any motorist entering Sarajevo would

11 use to find their way, and therefore my locations are very general.

12 JUDGE ORIE: If you think you couldn't properly identify the

13 locations on this map, I would suggest that we use another one. I cannot

14 blame the Defence for not having prepared it. But if you would have

15 another one --

16 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] We do not have here before us

17 a map, but unfortunately it's already been -- markings have already been

18 made on this map.

19 JUDGE ORIE: If I may suggest, Mr. Piletta-Zanin, let's just try

20 to see how far we come and how precise we can be, and if it turns out to

21 be insufficiently precise, then we still can change to another map.

22 So if you please -- you have got a black marker? Yes.

23 THE WITNESS: I do, Your Honour.

24 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation]

25 Q. Baron van Lynden, could you please indicate on this map the

Page 2172

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Page 2173

1 locations, as far as you know, the headquarters of the 1st Corps of the

2 army.

3 A. I cannot state that this was the headquarters of the 1st Corps of

4 the army. I know of a building where I met Mustafa Hajrulahovic. I don't

5 know if that was the headquarters or not.

6 Q. So you cannot indicate it. Could you indicate on this map

7 different locations that you were aware of and that would correspond to

8 the HQ or military facilities?

9 A. I will do my best.

10 Q. [In English] Do your best.

11 A. Your Honour, the first place I would like to mention is this

12 territorial army headquarters or base close to my first port of call or

13 first port of stay in Sarajevo that was mentioned, in May. And as I'm

14 aware, it would be -- how would you like me to mark it, with a T or?

15 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Piletta-Zanin, you can guide the witness in the

16 marking.

17 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Yes, of course,

18 Mr. President.

19 Q. No, I think that we will use numbers. If you can just mark number

20 1 in Arabic numbers on this location.

21 A. Arabic?

22 Q. Arabic numerals, not Roman numerals. Figures, just normal

23 numbers.

24 A. The second is the place where I -- it's there roughly. I mean

25 this is the rough area I'm doing. This is not precise. The second area I

Page 2174

1 would like to mark with number 2 --

2 Q. Could you please, sir -- sir, could you please make a circle

3 around the location. We cannot see it very well.

4 A. [Marks]

5 Q. Yes, thank you. Using a chronological listing of numbers, we

6 continue.

7 A. The second would be where I met Mustafa Hajrulahovic --

8 Q. Yes, if that's how you want it.

9 A. This is very general. It is a small street. And the third that I

10 can mark is the rough location of the building where I met Rasim Delic in

11 early 1995. I have to reiterate that this is very rough.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, you have repeatedly said so, and it's quite well

13 understood.

14 Please proceed, Mr. Piletta-Zanin.

15 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

16 Q. Thank you, sir. Sir, could you please -- about the headquarters

17 that were near your first accommodation, could you indicate it? Your

18 first accommodation, so the facility that you moved from. So we're

19 talking about Number 1.

20 A. [Indicates]

21 Q. Sir, do you know if -- could you indicate or would you be able to

22 indicate on this map where the Holiday Inn hotel is on this map?

23 A. Do you want to mark that with a 4?

24 Q. Yes, please.

25 A. [Marks]

Page 2175

1 Q. Sir, what is the approximate distance as far as you know between

2 the Holiday Inn hotel, number 4 on this map, and the Marsal Tito barracks?

3 A. They are almost adjacent to each other. They are very close. It

4 depends which part of Marsal Tito barracks, because it's a large

5 establishment. But they are very close to each other. The "T" on the map

6 that I put earlier is my recollection of the Marsal Tito barracks.

7 Q. As far as you can recall, do you know if at any time following the

8 month of September 1992 the Holiday Inn hotel could have been used also

9 for purposes of having that as military offices?

10 A. No, I don't know.

11 Q. You do not know. You never heard it said that there were offices,

12 military offices, there?

13 A. Not that I recall. I didn't stay at the Holiday Inn. Most

14 journalists did, but I never stayed there.

15 Q. Thank you for your answer.

16 I would like to return to the period of time when you told us that

17 you arrived, in May 1992, in Sarajevo. Is that right?

18 A. I arrived in Sarajevo in May 1992. Yes, that's correct.

19 Q. You told me, Baron van Lynden, that at first, the Bosnian army was

20 not perfectly well organised. Did I understand you correctly, or it was

21 not perfectly structured?

22 A. When the war began, there was no Bosnian army. And therefore, it

23 only slowly started to exist.

24 Q. Therefore, am I right to say that at the start of the hostilities,

25 the Bosnian forces did not have at their disposal many military

Page 2176

1 structures?

2 A. As I said, I only got there in May. I was not there in April. As

3 far as I'm aware, their initial structure was based on the police and on

4 the territorial defence forces, my --

5 Q. My question is also regarding May. My question --

6 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Piletta-Zanin, your question was whether at the

7 start of the hostilities, so I think the witness is perfectly right in --

8 yes, please.

9 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] I will rephrase the question.

10 Q. Sir, at the time when you arrived, which is very shortly after the

11 beginning of the hostilities, in May 1992 -- and I can rephrase the

12 question, but it's the same question, so the time after you arrived.

13 A. Their structures were weak. In as far as they existed, they were

14 weak structures; although I did, in my first visit to Sarajevo, encounter

15 a semblance of organisation. But absolutely not to the same effect that

16 one did even in the autumn of 1992. Things had clearly already changed.

17 Q. Thank you for your answer. Sir, you stated in your statement that

18 I'm referring to - and this is still the same statement - that there were

19 many men who were held in Sarajevo, a large number of men in the Bosnian

20 army, that were held in Sarajevo.

21 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, please, Mr. Waespi.

22 MR. WAESPI: Again, please indicate at least on which page of the

23 statement and then perhaps quote the one or two sentences you are

24 referring to. Even I can't recall --

25 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, literal quoting is to be preferred.

Page 2177

1 Please quote literally, Mr. Piletta-Zanin.

2 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Yes, of course. This is

3 page 5. And I have here the translation, and this is a Serbian

4 translation of the statement, and this is exactly what I am referring to.

5 So I will now try and find the English text which should be found

6 approximately on the same page. And I'm going to quote in English. You

7 said the following: [In English] "It was easy to keep under siege, as the

8 topography allowed relatively few infantry forces, backed up by artillery,

9 to keep large numbers of Bosnian troops committed to the defence of

10 Sarajevo."

11 Q. [Interpretation] I am referring to the use of -- the term that you

12 used yourself, so the term "large numbers." We agree on that?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. Thank you. When you are talking about large numbers of

15 soldiers - and we do know that you are not able to give us a precise

16 figure, and that is normal - do you know where, in general, these soldiers

17 were, where their positions were in the city itself?

18 A. On the front lines, generally.

19 Q. Were there locations in the city where the soldiers were able to

20 withdraw to? Because obviously they were not able to stay on the front

21 line the entire time.

22 A. As far as I'm aware, when Bosnian soldiers were in their

23 positions, they were in their positions. It's not a question of a 9 to 5

24 job that you go home in the evening. If they were allowed to go home,

25 those who had homes in Sarajevo -- because, of course, there were also

Page 2178

1 refugees who had come to Sarajevo who also formed part of their army.

2 Then they - this was if they'd be given two or three days or longer - then

3 they went home. I'm not aware of major barracks, if that's what you're

4 referring to, inside the city. I'm not aware of those.

5 Q. So you do not know about any particular quarters where they were

6 staying?

7 A. I'm not aware of any major Bosnian army barracks during the war

8 within the city. I'm aware that most soldiers were --

9 Q. Thank you. Thank you for your answer. Baron van Lynden, we are

10 still talking about the city of Sarajevo. Could you tell us about the --

11 JUDGE NIETO-NAVIA: I'm sorry. For the transcript, page 83,

12 number 14, I think that the witness said: "I am aware that most soldiers

13 were --"

14 THE WITNESS: On the front line.

15 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: I'm sorry. I didn't check it.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Please proceed. I think this has been

17 corrected properly now.

18 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Thank you. I am sorry. I

19 apologise. I am not following the transcript. Perhaps I should. But I'm

20 going to ask my question again.

21 Q. Baron van Lynden, the question was the following: You just told

22 us about the front lines in the city of Sarajevo. What was the length, as

23 far as you know, approximately, the length of the front lines in the city

24 of Sarajevo?

25 A. I couldn't give you a figure of how many kilometres the front

Page 2179

1 lines were. War correspondents don't go around the front lines counting

2 how long the front line is. It was all around the city. The city was

3 besieged. And it's not straight lines either. So I cannot give you a

4 figure. I'm sorry.

5 Q. Thank you for your answer. Baron van Lynden, I'm going to return

6 to the question of equipment. Did you know -- do you know whether, when

7 you arrived, so almost the beginning of the war in 1992, whether the

8 Bosnian troops were issued uniforms on a regular basis?

9 A. As far as I'm aware, at that time some of the troops did have

10 uniform. I saw others who had no uniform, who were simply in civilian

11 clothes. As I have already said, there was no Bosnian army, and therefore

12 it was only much later that you saw whole units all wearing military

13 uniforms.

14 Q. You said - but I'm just going to check on the transcript - you

15 said a moment ago that the others were not wearing uniform. You were

16 talking about soldiers, talking about troops?

17 A. There were armed people. Whether they knew precisely whether they

18 were in a -- they were not in a brigade, a company, that we would normally

19 associate with an army maybe at that stage, but they were certainly armed

20 and they were wearing either a bit of a uniform or civilian clothes. Some

21 were fully uniformed. It was a mishmash.

22 Q. Thank you, Baron van Lynden. Perhaps you could reply directly to

23 the Chamber rather than to me, so that perhaps we can avoid having

24 dialogues.

25 Baron van Lynden -- I'm sorry. I'm rephrasing that. Did you

Page 2180

1 hear, sir, that on the Serbian side, civilian victims were caused -- or

2 were victims of Bosnian snipers, that is, that they were victims caused by

3 the other side?

4 A. Hear, yes; see, no.

5 Q. Did you never report in your reports that there was also

6 sniping -- that there was Bosnian sniping - and I'm talking about,

7 obviously, other incidents in the war - that there was a Serbian civilian

8 population that were victims?

9 A. Yes. We reported that there were civilian casualties. But as I

10 said, I never saw them. We heard from the civilian population when I was

11 in Grbavica, that they were sniped at, and we did report that, but I was

12 never taken to a hospital and shown civilian casualties. So I personally

13 didn't see it, but we did hear it, we were told it, and yes, we reported

14 what we had been told.

15 Q. I understand well that you said that you never saw with your own

16 eyes civilians who were victims from snipers.

17 A. That is correct.

18 Q. Thank you for your answer.

19 A. That is correct.

20 Q. Baron van Lynden, could you tell us, please, and indicate on the

21 map that you have to your right, the Dobrinja area. Could you mark that

22 in, even if it is only roughly.

23 A. Shall I mark it number 5?

24 Q. Could you first show us the general area.

25 A. It's this general area.

Page 2181

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Page 2182

1 JUDGE ORIE: I see that this is a premarked map, as far as I can

2 see or --

3 A. It actually says "Dobrinja", Your Honour.

4 JUDGE ORIE: I actually see some circles on Dobrinja as well,

5 which I have no recollection that these markings have been made during the

6 examination-in-chief. That would mean that a marked map has been

7 presented to the witness or -- did you just mark it?

8 A. I just marked it.

9 JUDGE ORIE: We couldn't see that on the screen. So the circle

10 has been made out of the screen, not on the ELMO, by Baron van Lynden.

11 Thank you.

12 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President, for

13 that observation and guidance. I think that things are quite clear now.

14 Q. So in the circle, would you for the purposes of the transcript --

15 for the transcript, you have now circled the Dobrinja area. Is that

16 true? Is that correct?

17 A. That is correct.

18 Q. Thank you. Could you place a chronological number now following

19 on from the previous number.

20 A. [Marks]

21 Q. And it will be number 5, yes. Thank you very much.

22 Baron, I have a few questions with respect to that zone. The

23 first of them is as follows: Do you know whether close to that area,

24 there was also an HQ or some kind of military establishment of the Bosnian

25 forces in the proximity of that zone?

Page 2183

1 A. Yes, there was the Lukavica barracks I'm aware of.

2 Q. Baron van Lynden, let me look back to my question. I think that I

3 asked you whether you knew there was a military establishment of the

4 Bosnian forces. Let me just check that in the transcript.

5 So let me ask you the question again formally: Do you know if in

6 close proximity to the zone that we have designated as 5, and regardless

7 of your answer a moment ago, was there a military establishment of the

8 Bosnian forces?

9 A. I'm aware of the Bosnian army having a base within Dobrinja. I

10 don't quite understand "close proximity". If you're referring to

11 Alipasina Polje, that district, I'm not aware of a major headquarter being

12 there, no.

13 Q. Baron van Lynden, you've just mentioned a military base. So for

14 precision purposes, was it a Bosnian military base that you were referring

15 to?

16 A. As I said, within Dobrinja, there was the Bosnian army, and so

17 they must have had a base there, yes. The question you asked was in

18 proximity to Dobrinja. And in proximity, I am not aware of a Bosnian army

19 base.

20 Q. Yes, quite. Thank you. Thank you for your extreme precision.

21 Could you be equally precise in indicating within Dobrinja where

22 that military zone was?

23 A. I'm -- I don't think I quite understand your question. I don't

24 understand the question of a military zone.

25 Dobrinja, Your Honour, initially had a separate siege to the rest

Page 2184

1 of Sarajevo. A linkup was made at the end of June 1992. There was --

2 there were various army bases, if that's what you're referring to, inside

3 Dobrinja. But I don't understand where the military zone was.

4 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Mr. President --

5 JUDGE ORIE: Excuse me, I think your question did shift a bit

6 from -- first you talked about the zone indicated by a circle by the

7 witness, and then later you asked for headquarters, and then for military

8 zones again.

9 So perhaps, if this would assist you, Mr. Witness, could you

10 please indicate whether in Dobrinja there were any military, specific

11 posts or specific bases of which the military would act from? So I'm not

12 just asking about the presence of the military but any military base

13 within the Dobrinja zone.

14 A. Your Honour, there was a front line in Dobrinja. So there were

15 front-line positions in Dobrinja. And of course, slightly away from the

16 front line, there were bases, headquarters of sorts. The -- I visited one

17 within Dobrinja, but it was a relatively small office. They may have had

18 others that I'm not aware of.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Piletta-Zanin, you may proceed.

20 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. Let

21 me rephrase the question that I asked a moment ago.

22 Q. Could you, Baron van Lynden, indicate within the circle, inside

23 the circle, the location of what you have just said was a military base.

24 If you cannot, then you cannot. That's fine.

25 A. [Previous translation continued] ...

Page 2185

1 Q. Thank you.

2 You mentioned the front line with respect to that zone which you

3 have just designated as being number 5. Could you now, Baron, draw in for

4 us with a full line or a dotted line, whichever you like, the front

5 lines.

6 JUDGE ORIE: May I just ask whether they have any specific time in

7 mind, Mr. Piletta-Zanin?

8 A. [Marks]

9 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. We

10 are referring to the period here of after 1992 and the arrival of the

11 gentleman in Sarajevo, or rather September 1992 and the following months.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Is that correct, Mr. Van Lynden?

13 A. Sorry? I can't see the transcript.

14 JUDGE ORIE: While drawing the line, you are indicating the front

15 line on from September 1992 and the following month?

16 A. Yes, Your Honour, but very roughly.

17 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you.

18 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Thank you. Thank you,

19 Mr. President.

20 JUDGE ORIE: Looking at the transcript, I haven't pronounced the

21 words correctly. The following month, I meant following

22 Mr. Piletta-Zanin, the plural instead of the single, "following month"

23 plural. So with an "S" at the end, not ending with an "H". Thank you.

24 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Thank you for that

25 clarification, Mr. President.

Page 2186

1 Q. Baron, with respect to the number 5 zone, if I can put it that

2 way, and the surrounding periphery, was there, to your knowledge, any

3 military targets, one or more than one, apart from that base?

4 A. If I can have a look at the transcript again. Well, obviously, it

5 was a front line, so the front line was a military target.

6 Q. Yes, quite so. Yes, indeed. But within that -- other than that

7 line, close to those two zones, were there one or more military targets?

8 A. There were undoubtedly some headquarters within that zone for the

9 forces fighting in Dobrinja. Yes, there would have been. But I'm only

10 aware of one office, as I said before, that I went to. So I don't know

11 how many.

12 Q. Am I right in saying, Baron, that there were several HQs around

13 that zone? I think that I can deduce that from your answer.

14 A. I don't know. I'm saying that I went to one. I am aware of one

15 military office that I visited. I was not taken to any others. There may

16 have been more, but I don't know. You cannot deduce -- you can deduce

17 what you like, but I don't know.

18 Q. Witness, sir, you have just said -- I can quote in English -- that

19 without a doubt, there were several HQs, but let me just check that out.

20 JUDGE ORIE: I think in English, it reads --

21 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Within the zone.

22 JUDGE ORIE: In English, it reads --

23 A. Undoubtedly some headquarters, yes, correct. I don't know how

24 many.

25 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation]

Page 2187

1 Q. So your answer now is not contradictory to what you said a moment

2 ago.

3 JUDGE ORIE: The next line is "There would have been." So the

4 answer in English was: "There were undoubtedly some headquarters within

5 that zone for the forces fighting in Dobrinja. Yes, there would have

6 been." That was what exactly the answer was. And then it continues:

7 "But I'm only aware of one office, as I said before, that I went to. So

8 I don't know how many."

9 Am I right in understanding, Mr. van Lynden, that you expected

10 there to be headquarters? You saw only one, but there would have been

11 more, according to your expectation?

12 THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed, Mr. Piletta-Zanin.

14 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Thank you for clarifying that

15 for us, Mr. President.

16 Q. The name Butmir, does that ring a bell, Baron?

17 A. Yes, it does.

18 Q. Could you tell us briefly what it means, what it denotes?

19 A. Butmir is a village which lies on the other side of the airport

20 from Sarajevo.

21 Q. Thank you for your answer. At Butmir, was there a military

22 target?

23 A. I never worked at Butmir. I only drove through it. I imagine

24 that there may well have been soldiers of the Bosnian army there, and

25 there was there -- a tunnel was dug at a certain moment from Dobrinja to

Page 2188

1 Butmir. I stumbled upon the Butmir exit at night on one occasion. But if

2 that is what you're referring to, yes, that did exist.

3 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Piletta-Zanin, may I ask you how much time you

4 would still need? Because we're close to a quarter to 2.00, and I'm just

5 trying to figure out whether we could conclude today or not. Perhaps you

6 need more time. Please indicate. You are nodding no, and now you are

7 nodding yes. This is just for the transcript.

8 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. President. I was

9 just waiting for the interpretation to be completed. No to the first and

10 yes to the second question. The first was could we end right now. My

11 answer is no. The second one, do I need more time, my answer is yes, I do

12 need more time.

13 JUDGE ORIE: [Interpretation] Could you try and find a good moment

14 to wind up, let us say, in four, five, or six minutes.

15 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] I will indeed. Thank you.

16 Q. Let me go back to the map, Baron. Could you indicate, by putting

17 in number 6 at the entrance to the tunnel, the Butmir tunnel, please,

18 number 6 for that location.

19 A. No. I have no idea where in Butmir it was.

20 Q. Thank you for your answer. I might be going back to the map a

21 little later, Mr. President, but for the moment this is what I want to

22 ask.

23 Baron Lynden, you have said that you visited the two main

24 hospitals, the State Hospital and Kosevo. Is that right?

25 A. That's correct.

Page 2189

1 Q. Baron van Lynden, in your capacity of journalist this time, did

2 you ever hear mention that at one point or another - and more

3 specifically, in the course of January 1993 - that Bosnian troops had used

4 a hospital for military purposes?

5 A. No.

6 Q. Baron van Lynden, you never heard people talking about the fact

7 that the sector around the Kosevo Hospital was used by Bosnian troops in

8 order to implant and set up artillery pieces there? When I say "sector,"

9 I mean the building and the approaches to the building.

10 A. Kosevo Hospital is more than one building. It's a large academic

11 hospital. I have never seen any artillery there, nor have I heard that it

12 was being used for artillery purposes. The only thing I have heard is

13 that the maternity hospital that belonged, that was a part of the Kosevo

14 Hospital, that became a front line position, but that's some way away from

15 the rest of the Kosevo Hospital.

16 MR. PILETTA-ZANIN: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I know that

17 we're getting on in time, but could we distribute some documents so that

18 we can prepare for tomorrow.

19 JUDGE ORIE: May I just indicate to the parties that tomorrow,

20 once the examination -- the cross-examination and, if necessary, the

21 re-examination of Mr. van Lynden has been concluded, that we'd like to

22 have a short moment of oral argument on the videolink motion, if you

23 understand what I mean. You asked us to come back to this.

24 Apart from that, last Thursday, during the Status Conference, the

25 Chamber invited the Prosecution to come up with a new schedule ending

Page 2190

1 somewhere in the beginning of July, and we indicated that a couple of

2 days, of course, would be needed to prepare it. We haven't seen it yet,

3 and we're anxious to receive it at shortest notice.

4 These were the two practical remarks I would like to make. We'll

5 then adjourn until tomorrow morning, 9.00.

6 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.48 p.m.,

7 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 24th day of

8 January, 2002, at 9.00 a.m.

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