090213ED

Page 15904

1 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Puhovski, you will now be cross-examined by

2 Ms. Higgins. Ms. Higgins is counsel for Mr. Cermak.

3 Please proceed.

4 Cross-examination by Ms. Higgins:

5 Q. Good morning, Mr. Puhovski.

6 THE INTERPRETER: Would you mind taking the microphone closer to

7 you. Thank you.

8 MS. HIGGINS: Is that better?

9 THE INTERPRETER: Thank you very much. Yes, it is.

10 MS. HIGGINS:

11 Q. Mr. Puhovski, I'm going to start by asking you a few questions

12 about your involvement in the Croatian Helsinki Committee for human

13 rights, and for purposes of consistency for the record I'm going to try

14 to refer to the organisation as the HHO.

15 Do you understand?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Now, as I understand, the organisation was established in 1993

18 and from its inception until 1999, the president or the chairperson was

19 Ivan Zvonimir Cicak. Correct?

20 A. Yes, it is.

21 Q. And from the period of 1993 to 1998, for the record, you acted as

22 his deputy. Is that right?

23 A. Not throughout the period. I was his deputy as of 1994, and

24 ending with 1997.

25 Q. You resigned in May of 1998. Is that right?

Page 15905

1 A. No. As the deputy president, I resigned in 1997, and I left the

2 committee all together in 1998.

3 Q. Thank you very much for that clarification, and I'm going to come

4 on a later stage to deal with your resignation.

5 When did you go back to the HHO, after you had left?

6 A. In June 2000.

7 Q. And between the time of your resignation and the time you went

8 back to work in June 2000, did you stop working for the association

9 altogether in that time?

10 A. During that time, I spent three days every week in Austria. I

11 was in charge of a graduate course. For purely physical reasons, I was

12 unable to participate in their activities.

13 Q. Thank you. And is it right that during the time that you worked

14 for HHO you were based in the office in Zagreb?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Now in relation to events in the Krajina, I think it's right to

17 say, is it, that Mr. Cicak was dealing with matters in Sector South? Is

18 that right? That was one of the remits of his work?

19 A. The situation was such that we did not have sectors I stood in

20 for him when Operation Storm began. It just so happened that I was

21 literally the only committee member in Zagreb. It was early August when

22 most of the people are on the coast. Mr. Cicak was on the island of

23 Brac. Our communication was interrupted and for the first ten days, I

24 was doing everything from Zagreb because simply there was no one else.

25 At that time, GSMs were infrequent. And on certain days you

Page 15906

1 could you not establish any link. In the first ten days or so, I

2 undertook all of the activities. After that, Mr. Cicak returned and then

3 he was in charge of the activities as the president, including the

4 activities pertaining to Krajina. Of course, I would stand in for him

5 when he was under different or other obligations.

6 MS. HIGGINS: The transcript correction, Your Honour, at line 11

7 of page 8, it states that we did not have sectors. I'm informed it

8 should say we did not have resources for the record.

9 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Ms. Higgins the procedure is that you say that

10 there is a mistake. We ask then the witness to repeat the words, and not

11 so that you give the right translation, but if it is not --

12 MS. FROLICH: Mr. President, I do not believe that is correct. I

13 was listening to the witness in B/C/S, and I -- [Overlapping

14 speakers] ...

15 JUDGE ORIE: [Overlapping speakers] ... let's then ask the

16 witness what he said.

17 Ms. Higgins, it was at --

18 MS. HIGGINS: Line 11 of page 8.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Puhovski, you said: "The situation was such

20 that you did not have ..." and then you continued by saying, "I stood in

21 for him when Operation Storm began."

22 Now, what did you not have?

23 A. We had no division in terms of sectors or remits or work, rather

24 than territorial sectors. He as the president was in charge of all of

25 the activities of the committee, and I was his deputy, within the same

Page 15907

1 scope, same remit when he was unable to perform his function. Therefore,

2 there were no separate remits.

3 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

4 Ms. Higgins, this proofs how right the procedure is we adopted as

5 a standard.

6 Please proceed.

7 MS. HIGGINS: Thank you, Your Honour.

8 Q. Just out of interest, are you able to assist with who wrote the

9 Sector North section of the report, the 2001 report that you're

10 producing?

11 A. The entire report, both North and South is something that was

12 drafted by those who collaborated with Mr. Mrkalj. He decided on the

13 final version of the text was published in 1999, and I double-checked it

14 when it was supposed to be published as a book, and I added the text that

15 we discussed yesterday.

16 Q. Now you are one of two responsible editors for what I'm going to

17 refer to as the Storm report so that we know that we're talking about the

18 2001 report. Is that right?

19 A. Yes, it is.

20 Q. Do you have recollection of when you started and ended your work

21 as editor on that particular Storm report?

22 A. I think it must have been between late 2000 and the beginning of

23 February 2001. I cannot be any more precise than that.

24 Q. Thank you. Now, I'm going to ask you some more detail about the

25 report. And I understand that given your role as editor, there may be

Page 15908

1 parts that you are not able to help me with. So if that is the case,

2 please, don't hesitate to indicate that, and I can then try and ask

3 somebody else or find the information elsewhere, Mr. Puhovski.

4 In your statement that you made to the Court, we know that the

5 Storm report was based in large part on the HHO's fact-finding missions.

6 Correct?

7 A. Yes, it is.

8 Q. Now, again, in your statement, you separate out those missions,

9 as having taken place in mid-August 1995; September 1995; and March or

10 April 1996.

11 Do you recall that?

12 A. Precisely.

13 Q. We also know from the information that you've given, that in

14 relation to the mid-August period, from your supplementary information

15 sheet, a mission began on the 10th of August and lasted for three days.

16 Do you recall that?

17 A. Yes, that is correct.

18 Q. In respect of the time-frames of September 1995 and

19 March/April 1996, are you able or not to assist me with the precise dates

20 of the fact-finding missions that took place?

21 A. By that time, Mr. Cicak was back in charge. I am absolutely

22 certain that there was a mission or, rather that there was a team that

23 returned around the 10th of April, 1996. At that time Mr. Cicak was

24 abroad, and I had a debriefing with them upon their return.

25 Q. But just to clarify, in relation to the supplementary sheet where

Page 15909

1 you stated that there were 10 to 12 returns to the area, I understand

2 that you're not in a position to give me the exact dates. Would that be

3 fair?

4 A. No, I can't say that.

5 Q. You can't give me the dates?

6 A. I cannot.

7 Q. Thank you --

8 A. I cannot provide you with any precise dates.

9 Q. Now, the original reports, as I understand from what you've said,

10 when a fact-finding mission goes down to the area, those members draw up

11 a written report. Is that right?

12 A. Correct.

13 Q. Would it be one of the members, or all of the members who

14 contributed, or don't you know?

15 A. This is what the practice was, and -- as far as I know it was

16 always applied.

17 On our return to Zagreb, all of us would take a day's break, and

18 then would come back for a meeting with our own notes. Each and every

19 one of us had their own notes made from the field trip.

20 Then each of us would -- we would be making the reports for each

21 of the groups, and then Mr. Mrkalj would be going through all of these

22 draft reports, unless the report had to do with the field trip that he

23 was part of.

24 Q. Those original fact-finding mission reports from the Krajina

25 period that we've discussed, where are those reports; do you know?

Page 15910

1 A. To my knowledge, a few of them are in the office of the HHO in

2 Zagreb and some of them are in possession of the son of late Mr. Mrkalj.

3 His name is Jadranko Mrkalj. He also talk part in some of these

4 missions.

5 Q. Have any of those reports been provided to this institution, the

6 ICTY, the Office of the Prosecutor?

7 A. I don't know that any of the original reports were provided. I

8 am not privy to that information.

9 Q. And, again, given the level of detail you're able to help me

10 with, are you in a position to tell me about the precise location of each

11 fact-finding mission, or about the exact members who were party to each

12 mission, or not?

13 A. I can tell you that in the first mission which was partly our

14 mission and partly the mission with the International Helsinki

15 federation, come priced of Mr. Petar Mrkalj and Ms. Petra Klein. The

16 10th of April mission had to do with the area of Hrvatska Kostajnica and

17 it was Jadranko Mrkalj, Bozica Ciboci and Petar Mrkalj who were part of

18 that mission.

19 Q. So in respect of the ten other missions or so, you can't help me.

20 Is that right?

21 A. I cannot assist you with the exact dates or names. I can only

22 tell you who the team of the people was, who participated in it. But I

23 can't tell you when specifically which of these people took part in which

24 of the missions.

25 Q. Now, we'll come on to this. But, again, as I understand from

Page 15911

1 your evidence, the only part of the Storm report that you wrote were the

2 three pages which you were shown in examination-in-chief, which are

3 titled: Conclusion.

4 Is that correct?

5 A. Correct.

6 Q. So you didn't write any of the fact-finding mission reports that

7 underlay this storm report itself. Correct?

8 A. Of course. Because I did not participate in the missions, and it

9 would not have been proper for me to write about them.

10 Q. We'll come to that, your participation.

11 Just dealing with this other point, if you can help me, were any

12 of the original notes of the fact-finding missions ever translated into

13 English, or do they remain in Croatian only?

14 A. I'm almost positive that nothing was translated into English, or

15 at least I'm not aware of it.

16 Q. And to establish at the outset, again, it would be right to say

17 that, in terms of your involvement in the field, you were in Knin for a

18 matter of a couple of hours. Correct?

19 A. Correct.

20 Q. Now, you've mentioned the individuals who would go on the

21 fact-finding missions, and I think it's right to say that would include

22 Petar Mrkalj, Jadranko Mrkalj, Bozica Ciboci, Ranko Hellebrandt and

23 Olga Simic. Correct?

24 A. And Hajdi Kadenec.

25 Q. I know that Petar Mrkalj was trained as a journalist. Are you

Page 15912

1 able to help me with the professions of the other members who would go

2 out into the field on mission or not.

3 A. At the time his son Jadranko Mrkalj was a student Bozica Ciboci

4 and Ranko Hellebrandt were student too. Olga Simic and Hajdi Kadenec

5 were lawyers.

6 Q. Thank you.

7 Now again, just for the purposes of clarification, and I'm not

8 interested so much as why, but as a fact, none of the documentation that

9 came from those fact-finding missions was stored on computer or computer

10 data files. Is that right?

11 A. That's not right. The great majority was stored on a computer.

12 It was a personnel computer belonging to Mr. Mrkalj. This was the case

13 because of the reasons I stated yesterday, and that's the penetration of

14 the military secret service into the HHO office.

15 Q. At paragraph 5 of your statement, you refer to the fact that in

16 relation to the accounts that were collected, again, concerning the

17 Krajina, to use your words "there was no official way of checking the

18 accuracy of the facts through the police."

19 Is that a fair representation of what you have said in your

20 statement and what you understood to be the case?

21 A. That was most certainly the case in the first months that

22 followed. When it was practically almost impossible to have any contacts

23 with the official bodies. Eventually contacts with official bodies grew

24 in intensity and improved. The practice was that it was necessary to go

25 back to the same location twice or three times to see if anything

Page 15913

1 changed, and in time, let's say in 1997 and 1998, the contacts were

2 pretty normal, whereas back in 1995 and 1996 they were practically

3 non-existent.

4 Q. Thank you. Now just continuing with the Storm report, 2001,

5 again, as I understand from having read your statements, the precursor to

6 this book was the report that was published on the 8th of April, 1999,

7 and titled report: Operation Storm and subsequent events. Correct?

8 You're nodding, but if you could indicate a yes for the record, please,

9 Mr. Puhovski.

10 A. That's correct.

11 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... in your supplemental

12 information sheet you provide the information that Petar Mrkalj wrote the

13 entire April 1999 report. Is that right?

14 A. What is certain is that he edited the entire text. I'm not sure

15 how things went exactly. I wasn't in Zagreb at the time. What I know

16 from my conversations with him and other colleagues, he practically

17 re-edited the entire text because reports came in from individual

18 journeys that were made, and he formulated it finally into the version

19 that was circulated in 1999.

20 Q. Now, you have described his task as a re-editing of the entire

21 texts. Are you able or not to assist me with who wrote -- who were the

22 authors of that 1999 report? Can you help with that or not?

23 A. Of course. The same individuals who participated in the

24 fact-finding missions in the field; namely, Jadranko Mrkalj,

25 Bozica Ciboci, and others, all of them wrote their reports and on the

Page 15914

1 basis of them, Petar Mrkalj drafted the final text.

2 Q. Just to seek clarification of one other point which has become

3 slightly disjointed through the service of your statement and

4 supplemental notes so that I'm clear about it. In the first supplemental

5 note that we received, it was stated there that you had written the

6 conclusion of the Sector South part of the 2001 report. As I understand,

7 from the second note that was given to us, it was stated that, again, you

8 wrote the conclusion of the Sector South part of the report in 2000.

9 Correction was made to that, and, again, it now seems to be the case that

10 you wrote an introduction, as you have seen, to the Sector North part of

11 the report, that we've already looked at.

12 Do you recall seeing that?

13 A. Of course. Let me repeat again. This is the text that I wrote

14 for the purposes of the Croatian Helsinki Committee on the occasion of

15 the fifth anniversary of Operation Storm which was subsequently added

16 into the copy that was printed as a book ultimately.

17 This particular text does not specifically refer to either

18 Sector North or Sector South but to the situation that had arisen in the

19 general area as of the result of the action.

20 Q. I have looked very carefully at what you have written,

21 Mr. Puhovski. I wonder if you could help me with this: In the piece,

22 which may be perhaps be better phrased as an essay. You don't actually

23 cite any footnotes or references. Is there a reason for that?

24 A. The reason is the book itself. The whole book is a footnote to

25 the text, as it were.

Page 15915

1 Q. Before the publication of the 2001 Storm report, was there any

2 peer review of the book or the underlying reports? And by that I mean

3 was the report sent out for review by other similar bodies to review the

4 way in which it was compiled and the methodology used. Do you know the

5 answer to that?

6 A. I know the 1999 text which is the basis of the book since the

7 differences are really negligent, if we put aside my text, was sent to

8 someone 150 addresses from state agencies to international organisations

9 and embassies. We had the institute for migration, for sociology that

10 looked at the text, between four and five university professors,

11 political sciences experts, and several colleagues from Belgrade and

12 Sarajevo also looking at the text, and I'm referring to the first

13 version, dating back to 1999.

14 Q. Now in respect of that 1999 text, I know that it was distributed,

15 and you have referred to the agencies there. But was it distributed

16 before it was published for comment on its methodology at all?

17 A. I cannot answer the question, since I repeat, I did not take part

18 in the process. I only know of the consultations that took place between

19 the publication of the photocopied version and the book itself. And I

20 have given you my answer on that a moment ago.

21 Q. I'm grateful for that, Mr. Puhovski. Thank you.

22 Going back to your travel to Knin, could you help me with,

23 firstly, the dates of your travel, please.

24 A. I don't think I can. I think it was the 12th of August, because

25 in two or three days time, it was necessary to organise the arrival of

Page 15916

1 the group of representatives from the International Helsinki Federation.

2 Again I went there and stayed there for a couple of hours because

3 the information we received from domestic media were different from the

4 information divulged by the international media. We wanted to see

5 whether they were able to go there at all. Some of our colleagues from

6 the International Helsinki Federation were quite concerned because of the

7 information they had received from Vienna. I believed it incumbent upon

8 me to check up on that information. I repeat I was the only one in

9 Zagreb at the time, and the general belief was that it wouldn't have been

10 an easy job for either Mr. Banac or Mr. Cicak to make a journey from the

11 islands where they were, the island of Brac, to Knin.

12 Q. So you think it was the 12th of August?

13 A. I think it was the 12th, yes. But I'm not 100 percent sure.

14 Q. Did you, yourself, conduct interviews with individuals on that

15 date?

16 A. I spoke to several civilians in the UN base, in the UN compound.

17 That could not be termed as a proper interview. I simply wanted to get

18 an idea of what the atmosphere was like. And then I had a ten-minute or

19 at least under half an hour conversation with Petar Pasic.

20 Q. In relation to the conversation that you had with Petar Pasic,

21 did you make any notes about that conversation at the time as a

22 fact-finding mission member?

23 A. I wasn't a member of the mission. I simply wanted to check

24 whether it was safe for the mission to arrive there, and I did not take

25 any notes.

Page 15917

1 Q. Did you also visit the police station when you were in Knin?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Do you recall who you spoke to there?

4 A. I spoke to three or four policemen who were there. I don't know

5 their names. They were not higher-ranking officers. They were ordinary

6 policemen.

7 Q. You didn't meet with Mr. Cermak on that day. Correct?

8 A. I never met with Mr. Cermak.

9 Q. Thank you. I want to turn back now to aspects of the

10 fact-finding mission before we go and look in further detail at the

11 report.

12 You have mentioned, and we have discussed, the names of the

13 fact-finding mission members. Did the students who took part, that being

14 Jadranko Mrkalj, Bozica Ciboci, and Ranko Hellebrandt, receive any formal

15 training as to how to conduct themselves on a fact-finding mission for a

16 NGO? And I mean formal training.

17 A. They didn't. At the time there was no realistic possibility to

18 organise such a formal training. There was no practice to draw upon.

19 As I said earlier, we tried to formulate the experience we had

20 had and to train them during these weekend trainings. But these were

21 people who basically had to learn as they went along, through their work

22 in the field.

23 Q. Now, I know from your supplemental note you say that the

24 fact-finding team always asked the same questions about the details of

25 witnesses and victims and the crime in question, as well as about the

Page 15918

1 locations of units in the area.

2 Do you recall stating that?

3 A. Yes, I said that, and that is true. After the first of such

4 missions, sort of questionnaire was compiled on the basis of the

5 experience drawn from the first mission, and subject to slight

6 modifications that were made it, all the people who went on subsequent

7 missions stuck to the questionnaire.

8 Q. Now, do you have a copy of that questionnaire, Mr. Puhovski,

9 yourself?

10 A. I don't. I must have had it somewhere, but I misplaced it. It

11 can be found in the archive of the Croatian Helsinki Committee in Zagreb.

12 Q. Do you know whether that questionnaire was ever provided to the

13 Office of the Prosecution in the conversations that took place between

14 the HHO and the Office of the Prosecution? Can you help me with that or

15 not?

16 A. In the early days of the Tribunal, a group of two or three

17 representatives of the Prosecution came in 1997, I believe. At the time,

18 Mr. Cicak and I provided them with a copy of the questionnaire.

19 Q. Thank you. That's very helpful.

20 Now I know, again, that you were only present for a couple of

21 hours, and if you're not able to help me, please, just say so. But do

22 you know from the conversations that you had with the fact-finding

23 members who would return, whether or not it was one individual who

24 conducted the interviews, or whether all members of the team would

25 conduct interviews for whatever reason? Can you help me with that?

Page 15919

1 A. I can. When Petar Mrkalj was on the team, he was always the one

2 conducting the interview, or if he was not there, then any one of the

3 members of the team would conduct the interview, depending on how they

4 felt and depending on the composition of the team.

5 Q. Now, in terms of a NGO, I understand, given that it was created

6 in 1993, it would be fair to say that it was a relatively young

7 institution by 1995. What I want to ask you about are the procedures

8 that were or were not in place by 1995.

9 Do you understand?

10 A. The committee was set up by people who had had experience from

11 earlier human rights committees, Mr. Budak, Mr. Cicak, and I set up a

12 human rights committee in 1989 which was the first such committee.

13 Earlier on, in 1984 we were in the Croatian subcommittee to the Yugoslav

14 Helsinki Committee. It was a semi-legal organisation, to put it that

15 way.

16 So we were able to keep afloat, as it were in such activities and

17 we were able to convey that experience onto our colleagues. Undoubtedly

18 the Croatian Helsinki Committee as a NGO, was only a two-year-old toddler

19 at that time.

20 Q. My question is very specific, and it relates to the interviews

21 that were recorded with individuals on the fact-finding missions. It's

22 my understanding that those interviews, in relation to those, the

23 procedure was that they would be audio-recorded with a tape recorder at

24 that time. Is that accurate?

25 A. That was not the case on the first mission, I'm sure about that,

Page 15920

1 and I'm almost certain that all the other missions were taped. At the

2 same time, members of the team would also be taking notes.

3 Q. So what we have are apart from the first mission, we have

4 audiocassette recordings, and we have some notes by the members. It

5 wasn't, is it right to say, part of the procedure, at that stage, that

6 those notes and audio-recordings would be made into a form of witness

7 written statement. Correct?

8 A. Correct.

9 Q. So to follow on from that, at that time of the operation of the

10 HHO, there was no written record that was taken back to the individual to

11 be verified and signed. Would that be accurate?

12 A. Correct.

13 Q. Forgive me if I asked you this question earlier on, but if you

14 could just assist with me on this: Were any of those audiocassettes or

15 notes handed over to the Prosecution, or were they retained - I think you

16 said - by Petar Mrkalj's son, split between there and the HHO archive.

17 Could you just clarify that for me, please.

18 A. I don't know that any of the material was provided to the

19 ICTY Prosecution. The better part of it, at least until a couple of

20 years ago, was in possession of Petar Mrkalj's son, who asked for a hefty

21 sum of money from the Croatian Helsinki Committee in order for the

22 committee to get a hold of that material. We believed it unnecessary at

23 the time.

24 Q. Do you know -- and again, you may not know given your role. But

25 do you know whether, for example, on each and every interview that was

Page 15921

1 conducted, the amount of time taken to interview and the location of

2 interview, were they points that were recorded in either the audio or the

3 notes, or are you unable to assist me with the entirety of that question?

4 A. I can tell you that in the cases where I participated, in terms

5 of debriefing, the colleagues who had visited the field always had

6 precise data on where, when, and who spoke to whom. It was always in

7 their written notes.

8 Q. Along with the members of the fact-finding missions, were they

9 ever accompanied by experts, such as forensic pathologists, ballistics

10 experts, any one of that nature. Do you know anything about that?

11 A. I know for certain that no one accompanied them, ever. Those --

12 such missions would require additional five to six people who would be

13 willing to go in the field, and I believe experts are not necessarily

14 always the bravest of people.

15 Q. Moving from the fact-finding mission to the report for a moment,

16 the 2001 report, are you able to tell me whether or not there exists a

17 list or a bibliography or an index, in whatever form, of all the sources

18 that were relied upon to compile that 2001 report?

19 A. Nothing beyond the report exists in any formal shape. Anything

20 that is outside the reports are the written notes and audiotapes, mostly

21 in the possession of Mr. Mrkalj, as well as the references mentioned in

22 the footnotes, and those that can be found in the book itself.

23 Q. Now, just to conclude this section, would it be fair to say that

24 given your absence from the field, you're not able to help me or the

25 Court with any certainty, as to the accuracy of the actual process of

Page 15922

1 recording information that was obtained from individuals, the process

2 that was employed?

3 A. I repeat, I can tell you what I learned from the colleagues who

4 returned from the field. They provided extensive reports on what they

5 were doing, and, at that time, as today, I found it to be reasonable,

6 under the circumstances. They try their best to convey the -- what they

7 had been doing.

8 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, at this stage, I would ask that a

9 bundle be distributed which I have compiled to try and assist both the

10 Chamber and the witness in terms of speeding up the process of going

11 through what is a rather long report.

12 Q. If I can explain, Mr. Puhovski, for your benefit and for the

13 Bench, this bundle is divided into section A, and you'll see a tab later

14 on, section B. I'm going to take you through both of those. And you

15 will see that there are tabs dividing which I hope will assist to us go

16 through this relatively quickly.

17 These are, of course, extracts from the 2001 report. And, again,

18 what I'd like to do is take you to certain sections and draw to you my

19 concerns that I would like your assistance with, if you're in a position

20 to help me, with the proviso, please say if you can't.

21 MS. HIGGINS: So if we can go straight away to tab 1 in part 1,

22 part -- section A, tab 1.

23 Q. Do you have that in front of you, Mr. Puhovski?

24 A. I do.

25 Q. Thank you.

Page 15923

1 MS. HIGGINS: For the record, for e-court purposes, in English it

2 is page 28, and in Croatian it stretches over pages 26 to 27, the report

3 being 65 ter 4674.

4 Your Honour, while that is coming --

5 JUDGE ORIE: I -- you're referring to e-court paging?

6 MS. HIGGINS: I am.

7 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. That's -- and hard copy in English, apparently

8 starts at page 26.

9 MS. HIGGINS: Exactly.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.

11 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, may I proceed on the basis of the hard

12 copy and not wait for the upload on to the screen, to save time. I will,

13 of course, cite the numbers.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Please do as you deem appropriate.

15 MS. HIGGINS: Thank you.

16 Q. Page 26 of the report, Mr. Puhovski, deals with -- you can see it

17 has been highlighted so that we all know what we're talk being. You see

18 the highlight section there.

19 It deals with incidents concerning the shelling in part of

20 Donji Lapac, an area which we know, for the record, to be outside the

21 Split Military District. But the question I have for you, is if you look

22 at the footnote, footnote 25 which supports the third paragraph there of

23 the report, the interviewee is referred to by initial TK.

24 Now, first of all, from the report itself and what you've seen,

25 are you in a position or not to assist me with who the interviewer was?

Page 15924

1 A. I don't know who was the interviewer. During that time, I did

2 not take part in the debriefing process.

3 Q. Do you know who TK was?

4 A. I don't know who TK was.

5 Q. And for the purpose of comprehensiveness, in the second

6 paragraph up from the bottom, 12 lines up in the English there is

7 reference there to a line which starts: "According to the diary report

8 of BA from the village of M ..."

9 Can you help me with either of the references as to what they

10 refer to, who BA was, what village M was, please, or not?

11 A. No, unfortunately not.

12 MS. HIGGINS: Tab 2, please.

13 Q. Highlighted version here refers to the shelling of Knin. I'm not

14 going to take you through the entire text, as we're all familiar, or can

15 be made familiar with the text itself.

16 Second line, you see reference to KS. Can you help me with KS's

17 identity, or are you not in a position to do so?

18 A. I can't tell you who it is.

19 MS. HIGGINS: For the record, that is e-court English 29,

20 Croatian 27.

21 Q. If could you turn over the page, please, now to the second page

22 of that tab, page 28.

23 MS. HIGGINS: For the record, this is e-court English 30,

24 Croatian 28.

25 Q. If you look at the bottom there at footnote 28, there is

Page 15925

1 reference to this individual, KS, giving a statement to CHC activists.

2 But we see that the date what is used is in fact the 11th of February,

3 1995, which we all know must be an error, given the timing of the

4 incident at first.

5 A. In the original, it is 1999.

6 Q. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

7 A. It's simply a typographical error.

8 Q. Yes, that's helpful. Thank you.

9 MS. HIGGINS: If we could go to tab 3, please. E-court

10 English 31, Croatian page 30.

11 Q. Fifth line down, in that paragraph, there is an account given by

12 a disabled elderly woman.

13 Can you assist or not can with the identity of that person, or

14 when that interview was recorded, please.

15 A. I cannot tell you anything about either of the things.

16 MS. HIGGINS: Tab 4, please. E-court English 37, Croatian 35 to

17 36.

18 Q. This section refers to Donji Lapac again, supported by a

19 reference at footnote 4 by an individual ZL, called J, born in 1928,

20 Donji Lapac. I presume from your answer, you're not able to assist me in

21 relation to the identity of that individual. Is that correct?

22 A. No. During the debriefings we did not touch upon the issue of

23 names, because we believed at the time it was wise for as little people

24 to be -- as few people to be familiar with the names as possible.

25 Q. I understand, Mr. Puhovski. Could I ask you, on that page, the

Page 15926

1 paragraph that starts: "At least 38 persons ..."

2 If you track through to the third line of that paragraph, it

3 refers to: "The witnesses saw him ..."

4 Track down to the second to last line: "The witnesses state ..."

5 Any further detail that you have as an editor of this report that

6 may assist this Court as to their identities, please.

7 A. No. But we did however check and establish that Mr. Milan Medic

8 could be seen on TV and that he was killed. I personally confirmed that

9 when checking it with the -- in the archives. As for the other

10 witnesses, I can't tell you anything.

11 Q. I'm not trying -- just to be clear with you, I'm not challenging

12 that fact. What I'm interested in is the underlying reference, just so

13 that you and I are not in dispute over that.

14 You will also see there in the second-to-last paragraph from the

15 bottom reference to an incident concerning what's referred to as the old

16 man Savo Bursac. Is there, to your knowledge, an identifiable source for

17 that information, please, or can you not assist me with that?

18 A. Savo Bursac, we received a that information from the Red Cross.

19 I know that for certain.

20 Q. So the footnote there should be to a Red Cross report of some

21 sort, I presume, should it? If there were to be one?

22 A. Probably so. I did this verify with the family. They requested

23 information, and they did indeed obtain information from the Red Cross.

24 MS. HIGGINS: Tab 5, please, which is e-court English 39,

25 Croatian spreading over pages 37 to 38.

Page 15927

1 Q. Again, same exercise. Refers to Knin. Please look at the

2 footnotes 8 and 9. The identifiable source is referred to as NR, born in

3 1933, and KS.

4 If you'd like to check your version, please, do so.

5 A. Unfortunately, I have to tell you the same thing. I am not

6 familiar with the initials. I may have known who the people were, but I

7 have forgotten in the meantime. Whereas for most of the initials, I

8 didn't know who they pertained to.

9 MS. HIGGINS: Tab 6, please. E-court English 41, Croatian 39 to

10 40. Events in Oton.

11 Q. References in footnotes 15 and 16 to VP and MK. Again, if you

12 would like to check your text, please do so.

13 A. The response, unfortunately, is the same. I don't know who

14 this pertains to.

15 Q. Let me skip very quickly through the rest of section A because I

16 suspect we may be on the same ground here, Mr. Puhovski.

17 Tab 7, please, English 43, Croatian 41. Footnote 21, in support

18 of that paragraph that is highlighted concerning people who died in

19 Mokro Polje, there is a reference to witness BA.

20 Are we on the same ground here, Mr. Puhovski, that you can't help

21 me with the identity?

22 A. Yes. I can't help you.

23 Q. The other point here is from the reading of the text, it doesn't

24 appear clear as to whether or not the individuals -- the witnesses saw

25 the killings or were told about them afterwards.

Page 15928

1 Do you have any clearer information on that aspect of this

2 paragraph, or are you not in a position to assist?

3 A. I can only help you by stating that, in principle, we only

4 published the names or initials in the cases for which we had witnesses

5 who had either witnessed the murders themselves or saw the body.

6 MS. HIGGINS: Tab 8, please. E-court English 44, Croatian 42 to

7 43.

8 Q. It's this -- this page here, tab 8, the footnote refers to, in

9 footnote 25, BA, as the witness in respect of these events. What I would

10 seek is -- is, of course, the identity and/or the date of interview, if

11 you know or can help.

12 A. I don't.

13 MS. HIGGINS: Tab 9, please. E-court English 45, Croatian 43.

14 Q. Footnotes 26 and 27, witnesses BA and KL, to events described on

15 that page.

16 Any assistance or not?

17 A. The same response.

18 MS. HIGGINS: Tab 10. E-court English 47, Croatian 45.

19 Q. Footnotes 32 and 33, individuals referred to as RD, KD.

20 Is it the same response for that tab as well, Mr. Puhovski?

21 A. Unfortunately, it is.

22 MS. HIGGINS: Tab 11. English 54, Croatian 52 for the screen.

23 Q. Now, this tab, Mr. Puhovski, if you would like just to leaf

24 through it, it actually extends to eight pages of the report. And it

25 covers incidents relating to Grubori, Gosic, and Varivode. And if you

Page 15929

1 look at that section of the report, the only individuals who have

2 provided the source information are witnesses who are referred to as ZU,

3 VZ, RD, KA, KS, along with an interview by Alun Roberts.

4 Do you know the identities of these people or not?

5 A. I don't.

6 MS. HIGGINS: Tab 12, please. E-court English 61, Croatian 58 to

7 59.

8 Q. Section entitled: Missing persons. Again, we've got reference

9 here. If you leaf through, can you take it from me, if you like,

10 Mr. Puhovski, but if you leaf through that section, the references are,

11 again, to individuals by initial of SD - that's on page 60, middle of the

12 page - NS, similarly, middle of the page, page 61, top of the page, ND.

13 Same question, Mr. Puhovski, whether you know the identities or

14 not of the individuals cited in this report?

15 A. I don't.

16 MS. HIGGINS: Tab 13, please. E-court English 87, Croatian 83.

17 Q. Sources here, again, over the next couple of pages, you can take

18 it from me that the sources are of the highlighted paragraphs BA, MH, and

19 on page 87, an anonymous soldier.

20 Same question, Mr. Puhovski: Can you assist, do you know or not?

21 I have to repeat, we believed it was important to protect the witnesses,

22 and not even committee members knew of their name, save for the ones who

23 spoke to them.

24 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: Could all background

25 noise, especially typing be brought down to a minimum.

Page 15930

1 MS. HIGGINS:

2 Q. Final example in this clip, tab 14, footnote 1, over the page,

3 the second page of that tab for e-court, that's English 108 to 109.

4 Croatian 104 to 105.

5 We see again an initial KS. Can you assist with whether or not

6 that's the same as the previous KS or not, Mr. Puhovski?

7 A. KS, it is the same interview. It is the same date in 1999. I'm

8 certain that's the same person, although I don't know who it is.

9 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, I'm going to continue through

10 section B. I don't know whether Your Honour would like to take an early

11 break or for me to continue with this exercise until 10.30.

12 JUDGE ORIE: I wondered whether this is a very efficient way of

13 proceeding. If you would have prepared a list of footnotes, initials,

14 and asked the witness to review over the break whether he could assist us

15 in identifying the persons that would have saved I think some 70 per cent

16 of the time spent on it in Court at this moment. And then of course you

17 could have further given a follow up if there would be a positive

18 response, but to listen for a half an hour that the person is not able to

19 identify the persons mentioned by their initials only in the report is

20 not -- I'm hesitant to say this, because I can't say that your Defence

21 team is usually taking more time than one would expect, perhaps even on

22 the contrary. I'm not commenting on that, but it explains my hesitation.

23 Is there any way of -- of doing it in this way so that we can

24 move on and not need half an hour to establish that the witness is

25 unaware of the persons hidden behind these initials.

Page 15931

1 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, in respect of section B of this

2 document, I must say for the record that it actually took considerable

3 time to try and think of the best way to not only just cite a list but to

4 give this witness a fair opportunity of reviewing what I'm referring to,

5 and I have tried to assist everyone by compiling it in this way, and I

6 know Your Honour will understand that.

7 But for section B what I propose is, if I, over the break, allow

8 Mr. Puhovski to review section B, I can deal with it very shortly on my

9 return, perhaps within the space of five or six minutes.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I take it then that Mr. Puhovski is invited to

11 look specifically at the highlighted portions.

12 MS. HIGGINS: Yes.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Could you give us an indication whether the same

14 questions is to identify persons that are given initials in these

15 portions. Is that what you're --

16 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, most of section B is actually

17 unfootnoted, unsourced passages of the report. So the question is

18 different but a slight variant in the sense of can Mr. Puhovski assist or

19 not. The examples are then there for the Chamber.

20 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, assist in identifying --

21 MS. HIGGINS: The source.

22 JUDGE ORIE: [Previous translation continues] ... the source of

23 this portion of the report.

24 MS. HIGGINS: Yes.

25 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Puhovski, I'm hesitant to ask you to do some

Page 15932

1 homework over the break. However, if you would be willing, and I know

2 it's 19 tabs, but to briefly review the highlighted portions under tab B

3 and see whether you can add anything to the report, in terms of the

4 identity of the source. That's what we're talking about, isn't it,

5 Ms. Higgins?

6 MS. HIGGINS: Yes.

7 JUDGE ORIE: Then we could deal with this in the most efficient

8 way after the break.

9 I further would like to inform the parties that there are still

10 some submissions to be made where the Chamber said Thursday or Friday,

11 that I take it that the parties are aware of -- of what I'm talking

12 about, and the Chamber would like also to know whether the parties have

13 any issue with making the Prosecution motion we are talking about and

14 it's Appendix C, a public document. That's the first question. And

15 whether there's any problem there making the Gotovina Defence response a

16 public document as well.

17 If you would please would conclude that.

18 We'll hear -- Mr. Waespi, we'll hear your submissions by the end

19 of today's session. That is ten minutes for each party, so we'll start a

20 little bit before 1.30.

21 Then we will we have a break.

22 Mr. Puhovski, I'm sorry to ask you to do some extra work.

23 And we will resume at five minutes to 11.00.

24 THE WITNESS: [No interpretation]

25 --- Recess taken at 10.29 a.m.

Page 15934

1 was able to review the tab B documents.

2 Please proceed.

3 MS. HIGGINS: I'm grateful, Your Honour.

4 Q. Mr. Puhovski, did you have an opportunity to look through section

5 B of the clip that I provided to you in the break?

6 A. I did.

7 Q. The purpose of me providing you with that clip was to bring out

8 examples of the report where there are no footnotes which support the

9 sections, in terms of sources, for those parts which are highlighted, and

10 I'm sure you understood that as we -- just before the break as I tried to

11 clarify what the documents related to.

12 Are you in a position to help in providing any detail in respect

13 of those passages, or not, Mr. Puhovski?

14 A. This is a report from a non-governmental organisation, which was

15 made public and contained information that the NGO was able to obtain.

16 This was not made for the purposes of a court or anything else but for

17 the sake of the public, which is what is stated in the foreword to the

18 book.

19 I can tell you in the past in the ten years of its incomplete

20 publication and the eight years of it's official publication, none of the

21 facts contained therein were called into question. Save for one piece of

22 information which we managed to confirm being true. This is what I can

23 tell you, generally speaking. We did not consider it our duty to come

24 out with information about our sources. Quite the contrary. We believed

25 that that might threaten their safety.

Page 15935

1 In a number of situations our activists engaged in field work,

2 submitted reports to us that we made public as -- in the form in which

3 they were, and that's the only thing I can tell you about it.

4 Q. Mr. Puhovski, your report is being produced now in a criminal

5 trial, and it's for that reason, which I know you understand, that I have

6 to ask you about the underlying material, and I take your answer, and I'm

7 going to ask you now to move on, and to look at -- I'm going to ask you

8 questions about the three annexes at the back of that report, which I

9 know you're familiar with.

10 MS. HIGGINS: For the purposes of e-court, that's English,

11 starting at 138, Croatian, starting at 132.

12 Q. Now, to shorten this part of the process, Annex 1 refers to

13 civilians killed during and after Operation Storm, as you will recall;

14 Annex 2 refers to terrorism and violence incidents; and Annex 3 refers to

15 abuse.

16 MS. HIGGINS: For the purposes of the Bench, annex 1 starts at

17 hard copy page 137 and then continues through.

18 Q. At the start of Annex 1 concerning civilians killed during and

19 after Operation Storm, you state -- or, rather, the report states at the

20 end of paragraph 1 that at the time of publication the list, it says, is

21 not final.

22 Do you see that at paragraph 1 of Annex 1?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. Now none of these Annexes, and I'm going to take them

25 generically, cite how the organisation obtained the details in respect of

Page 15936

1 each of the individuals listed here, and you will, of course, note the

2 relative brevity of what is recorded in this, as you have called it, the

3 NGO report. Can you assist me with any further level of detail or not,

4 in respect of firstly how the organisation obtained the details for each

5 person, or is that level of detail not something that can you deal with?

6 A. What I can tell you is to repeat what I said. The method was to

7 have two independent sources and if they provided the same information,

8 then it would be published. We had some 160 to some 170 names for which

9 we could not obtain a confirmation from two independent sources, and

10 these names were not published. Our activists had to verify information

11 from two independent sources; namely, two witnesses, or institutions or

12 organisations.

13 We wanted to keep it as brief as possible, since the intention

14 was to come out in the public with the names of those killed, rather than

15 the numbers. We did not want to draw the attention of the public to the

16 numbers as much as to the names of those killed.

17 MS. HIGGINS: Can I ask that document 2D09-0008 be uploaded on to

18 the screen, please.

19 Q. While that is coming up, can I provide some background for both

20 yourself, Mr. Puhovski, and the Bench. This is a table that has been

21 created by our Defence team on the basis of analysing Annex 1 of the

22 report and studying data that comes from the Croatian government

23 administration for detainees and missing persons. That data is relied

24 upon in these tables and was published in something that you may well be

25 familiar with, the title of which I had is the book of missing persons in

Page 15937

1 the area of the Republic of Croatia, which was published in December 2006

2 by the ICRC.

3 Are you familiar with that document published by the ICRC,

4 Mr. Puhovski, first of all?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Now, the review that has been conducted here, just so that you

7 have the context, names have been looked at in Annex 1 of the 2001 report

8 and a comparison has been made with information coming from the ICRC

9 statements of the families looking for individuals, which was published

10 in that text I referred to, in December 2006.

11 For the purpose of the screen so that you've seen it, this

12 document spreads to three pages. And as you can see the HHO number of

13 the individual is in column 2, the names are then provided; and in the

14 last column the status which refers to exactly the public document which

15 has been used for the purpose of comparison.

16 If we can scan over to the second page, please, and the third

17 page, you'll see that the table actually refers to 17 different

18 individuals. These individuals, Mr. Puhovski, were recorded as civilians

19 who had been killed during and after Operation Storm in Annex 1, but were

20 actually, when the comparison was done, you will see all of them were

21 found in military uniform.

22 Now my question for you is the following: Was ever such a

23 comparison done between Annex 1 of the 2001 report and the ICRC data that

24 was published in December 2006 by your organisation?

25 A. The report was published five and a half years after the

Page 15938

1 publication of our report. We received it from the Red Cross roughly six

2 months before it was published. We found, and that was important, that

3 the names of those killed were basically consistent, and that in the

4 meantime, if you look at the autopsy reports most of the autopsies were

5 done already after we had finished our report. And the fact that

6 somebody is aged 55, like Mr. Petar Milic and was found in military

7 uniform, well, this does not mean that this person was a soldier. It is

8 common knowledge that there were people on both sides wearing a uniform,

9 and nevertheless they were civilians on the run.

10 Q. Do I take it from your answer that after December 2006, when the

11 ICRC data became public, the HHO did not review the 2001 report, in light

12 of that data. Is that right?

13 A. No. I repeat, we received the report from them earlier on,

14 before it was published, in summer -- in the summer, and we compared it

15 against our data. As I said, in the majority of cases, the names were

16 consistent, and this is what mattered to us.

17 Q. So the fact that individuals were found in military uniform, you

18 did not consider to be a relevant factor in determination of our Annex 1,

19 in assessing Annex 1 of your report. Is that right? You discarded it as

20 irrelevant.

21 A. Correct. Because -- no, we did not discard it as irrelevant. We

22 took it into consideration. The book was already published by that time.

23 However, we believed it was our primary task, and I -- I stated this at

24 page 93 of the Croatian version, that we spoke of the military and

25 civilian victims about which we received information. Some information

Page 15939

1 indicated that certain individuals were civilians. And the fact that

2 this report stated that they were found in military uniform was not that

3 relevant. For 14 individuals, unless I'm mistaken, it was established

4 that they were found naked, and the immediate conclusion was that

5 whatever clothes could be got by were put on them before they were

6 buried. Therefore, while it was not a confirmation of the fact that an

7 individual was a civilian, it was neither a denial of it.

8 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, would seek admission of this table.

9 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Frolich.

10 MS. FROLICH: Mr. President, I would have an objection. I would

11 have two reasons. Firstly we would have to check the accuracy of the

12 underlying document -- of the facts as stated in the underlying document.

13 So therefore I would seek at least that the document would be MFIed at

14 this moment, but also I believe the heading which says the list of

15 persons for which the documentation showing that they are military

16 formations members exists is misleading in the light of what is actually

17 listed in the table, which is persons in military uniform, some of which

18 are listed as soldiers but not all.

19 So we would seek an amendment to that heading, and, of course,

20 checking of the accuracy of the underlying facts.

21 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Higgins.

22 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, an amendment to the title will be

23 undertaken by the Defence. I would seek one point of clarification. Of

24 course, we can disclose this material, the underlying material, to my

25 learned friend, but I wonder whether in fact they have it already.

Page 15940

1 MS. FROLICH: I do believe we might all the material. If -- in

2 fact, I cannot be certain at this point. I do believe we have it, but we

3 will have to check.

4 JUDGE ORIE: I think it would be very practical, I mean, of

5 course, for admission, full accuracy is not -- and 100 percent

6 reliability is not required. At the same time if there are any -- any

7 mistakes which can be justified, that saves everyone one version in

8 evidence and then the next version in evidence. Now about the title,

9 Ms. Higgins, I would have a question there as well.

10 Yes, you say errors about the status which seems to a conclusion

11 that the errors are not made by the ICRC but by another. Wouldn't it be

12 appropriate to talk about comparison between the data?

13 MS. HIGGINS: Yes.

14 JUDGE ORIE: That's -- then it's introduced in such a way that

15 not conclusions are already in the title, and that -- of course, it

16 wouldn't change anything for the Chamber, but I think it would be the

17 appropriate way of presenting it.

18 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, I entirely agree, and this is one of a

19 series of four tables, so can I make an undertaking to review the titles

20 of the -- of the documents which came to me yesterday.

21 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

22 MS. HIGGINS: I'm attempting to deal with that and, of course, I

23 will undertake to do. To make it more reflective of what's actually

24 stated in the table itself.

25 JUDGE ORIE: And again, of course, the title you attach to a

Page 15941

1 certain document, of course, we'll look at the substance of the document,

2 rather than at the title, and, therefore, errors -- unless you meant that

3 the ICRC made an error here or ...

4 MS. HIGGINS: No [Overlapping speakers] ...

5 JUDGE ORIE: [Overlapping speakers] ... You didn't say who made

6 the error.

7 Yes, Mr. Misetic.

8 MR. MISETIC: Your Honour, I have no problem with how you wish to

9 proceed on this. I do wish to note, though, that inn terms of what the

10 admissibility of this chart later, in terms of the argument that the OTP

11 needs to check the underlying materials, I just wanted to note the irony

12 of the fact that we're talking about a report that they've tendered that

13 can't be checked because there are no underlying materials. Just in

14 terms of the admissibility of the document.

15 JUDGE ORIE: [Overlapping speakers] ... No, I -- yes, I see your

16 point, but, of course, Ms. Frolich is now responding to the underlying

17 material which is presented in this report.

18 And again there, Ms. Frolich, it's -- there's nothing against it.

19 Whether it bears on admissibility but, again, if these matters are sorted

20 out in an early stage, if there are any mistakes, if, for example, you

21 say number GO 5/0323 B, that must be mistake, that saves the Chamber

22 later from spending hours if not ages on trying to find this autopsy

23 report. So it seems to be very practical.

24 And Ms. Higgins.

25 MS. HIGGINS: Could I, therefore, given your observations ask the

Page 15942

1 document be marked for identification.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, and then replaced by another one.

3 Madam Registrar, this document, which is not the final version,

4 will be marked for identification under number ...

5 THE REGISTRAR: Under number D1302, Your Honours.

6 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. That's how it is now on the record.

7 Ms. Higgins.

8 MS. HIGGINS: I'm grateful.

9 If I could now call up 2D09-0014 on to the screen, please.

10 Q. This is the second document, the second table in a series,

11 Mr. Puhovski. And for the moment if you could ignore the title, and we

12 will concentrate on the content of the document itself. It runs to two

13 pages and takes 11 individuals from Annex 1. The information this time,

14 again from the ICRC materials, relates to individuals who have been

15 reported by their family members as soldiers of various units where it

16 was possible to identify that.

17 My question for you - and, again, if it can be turned over to the

18 second page of the English. Mr. Puhovski has the entirety in Croatian -

19 you will see the level of detail or not that is provided by the family

20 statement in search of the individual.

21 Now, again, the same question: When this data was published in

22 December 2006, was a review -- or, rather, you had access to it before.

23 Did you specifically consider the material contained in those Red Cross

24 materials or not for the purposes of Annex 1?

25 A. I will repeat again. By the time Annex 1 had been published for

Page 15943

1 five years, Nikola Olic, son of Drazan, was found in a Croatian uniform.

2 He was definitely not a soldier and certainly not a soldier of the

3 Croatian army. This is something that we established. But we did not

4 use this piece of information to indicate that all the other information

5 is wrong as well. We took it upon ourselves to establish the individuals

6 who were victims, and we compared it against the book which had, by that

7 time, been published for five years. There was no reason for a book that

8 was already published and was already there for the public to be reworked

9 on.

10 Q. So the short answer to the question is, yes, you reviewed the

11 materials; and, no, it was not included. Correct?

12 A. The better part of it was not. For some of the things they were

13 right, for the others we were right. Primarily it had to do with the

14 clothing in which the victims were found. I repeat that I do not agree

15 with the statements made in this report that the clothes indicated the

16 persons were soldiers.

17 MS. HIGGINS: Could I ask that that document be marked for

18 identification, please, Your Honour.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Frolich.

20 MS. FROLICH: My objection would be the same as for the last one

21 because the entry as for the heading of the table, entry number 10,

22 person [Overlapping speakers] ...

23 JUDGE ORIE: [Overlapping speakers] ...

24 MS. FROLICH: [Previous translation continues] ... in military

25 uniform. That's all, thank you.

Page 15944

1 JUDGE ORIE: I think that Ms. Higgins has already announced that

2 she would review the titles, so that is understood.

3 Madam Registrar, the number would be ...

4 THE REGISTRAR: The document will become Exhibit D1303, marked

5 for identification.

6 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Madam Registrar.

7 When will we hear from you, Ms. Frolich, in relation to checking

8 the accuracy of the sources that are presented in this comparative table?

9 MS. FROLICH: I believe that by Monday we could have the accuracy

10 check completed.

11 JUDGE ORIE: That's on the record.

12 MS. FROLICH: Thank you.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Higgins, I have always problem in having the

14 same -- several documents at the same time on my screen. To try to make

15 it easy, the first one and second one, is that 17 plus 11, or is any

16 overlap between them so the total number of persons were ...

17 MS. HIGGINS: As I understand, Your Honour, and I just -- if you

18 give me a moment, I just check --

19 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Just for ...

20 [Defence counsel confer]

21 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, there is a slight overlap. The

22 difference being that the first table that I presented is based on more

23 documentation, a mixture of Prosecution evidence -- [Overlapping

24 speakers] ...

25 JUDGE ORIE: Let me stop you. What I'm asking for is whether we

Page 15945

1 have all together 28 persons, or do we have 23, 24, or 17 or 18?

2 MS. HIGGINS: We'll give you the precise number, Your Honour.

3 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you. Please proceed.

4 MS. HIGGINS: Thank you.

5 The next table, please, is D209-0022.

6 Q. Mr. Puhovski, this table again with the same proviso as regards

7 the title, provides by looking again at the ICRC material, further detail

8 of the circumstances which are known of the individuals that died. These

9 individuals are contained, for the Benches clarification, within tables 1

10 or 2, so they're not additional individuals, but more information is

11 provided there.

12 Mr. Puhovski, I have already asked you about consideration of

13 this material. So I don't propose to address that further.

14 MS. HIGGINS: But I would seek admission of this document that it

15 be marked for identification, Your Honour.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Frolich, may I take it same position.

17 MS. FROLICH: Yes, Mr. President.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Madam Registrar.

19 THE REGISTRAR: The document will become Exhibit D1304, marked

20 for identification.

21 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Madam Registrar. Could you please inform

22 the Chamber once the new versions have been uploaded.

23 MS. HIGGINS: Yes, of course, Your Honour.

24 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you. Please proceed.

25 MS. HIGGINS: Thank you.

Page 15946

1 Q. The final table in this series is 2D09-0017. And for your

2 purposes, Mr. Puhovski, the material from this table comes from

3 Prosecution source material concerning autopsy reports and MUP sanitation

4 protocols as well as ICRC information. All of these individuals from a

5 comparison of those documents, it is indicated or apparent from the face

6 of the collection of material that those individuals either died as a

7 result of natural causes or suicide, as opposed to being killed within or

8 after Operation Storm.

9 Now, if you could cast your eye - and the document runs to three

10 pages, please - and again tell me whether that information is familiar to

11 you and your organisation, in terms of the three different sources and

12 whether it was considered and/or any reference made in the report, as I

13 couldn't find one. Thank you.

14 A. As opposed to the documentation of the ICRC, this is something

15 that I see for the first time.

16 Q. I'm grateful.

17 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, if I could ask that document as well

18 to be marked for identification.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Frolich.

20 MS. FROLICH: Same position as previously. Thank you.

21 JUDGE ORIE: Madam Registrar.

22 THE REGISTRAR: The document will become Exhibit D1305, marked

23 for identification, Your Honours.

24 JUDGE ORIE: And it will keep that status.

25 Ms. Higgins, one question. May I take it that the tables you

Page 15947

1 have presented by now are the result of a systematic comparison, or does

2 the Chamber have to go through the same exercise? It's not just

3 examples, but it is what you could find on the basis of the materials

4 that are available.

5 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, I would like to verify that, as to

6 whether it has been provided to me as examples or as an entirety of what

7 could be find in relation to the entire annex. If Your Honour would

8 permit me to do so.

9 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, I will. So therefore the nodding yes on your

10 right-hand side was premature.

11 MS. HIGGINS: Thank you, Your Honour.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Please, we'll wait and -- wait for your

13 answer.

14 MS. HIGGINS:

15 Q. Mr. Puhovski, I now want to move away from the tables, and I'm

16 going to ask you some questions about sections of the report that deal

17 with Mr. Cermak.

18 I know that you never met Mr. Cermak and that you never met with

19 him when you travelled down to Knin. So, again, I want to be specific

20 and I would like you to be specific, and I would like you to name, when

21 possible, the sources of information that you rely upon, as I know you

22 understand the context of this as a criminal trial.

23 Do you understand, Mr. Puhovski?

24 A. I do, of course. Yesterday I talked about the fact that the

25 reports are relied upon were based on the conversations I had with the

Page 15948

1 colleagues who participated in the mission of the IHF in Knin, if you are

2 referring to my report.

3 The assessments or conclusions provided were the result of the

4 work of those activists who were in the field.

5 Q. Just to remind you, you cited three sources; one being the

6 activists; one being Petar Pasic, who you spoke to in Knin; and the third

7 one being General Cervenko from media report, from --

8 A. From the report. That refers to the report, the third one, it's

9 not my personal experience, personal knowledge.

10 Q. Let's start backgrounds and deal with Mr. Cervenko first.

11 MS. HIGGINS: Can I ask that the page of the report be uploaded

12 please. It's for hard copy purposes, page 82 for the Bench, and English

13 version 84, page 84, Croatian, I am afraid, scans over pages 79 to 81.

14 Q. Mr. Puhovski, you know what I'm referring to. And on that page,

15 just as it's coming up on the screen, it's footnote 3.

16 Now, I'm not going ask you about what Mr. Cermak was alleged to

17 have said; you understand there has been a ruling about that. But I'm

18 going to ask you about your reliance on a media source which is cited

19 here, General Cervenko.

20 Do you understand?

21 A. Yes, I do. Our belief was based on the fact that interviews and

22 texts were published which were not subsequently denied or contested. We

23 believed those to be the facts that we can use in our report, and so we

24 did.

25 Q. I understand that, Mr. Puhovski. Let's, for the record, just

Page 15949

1 look at the extract itself.

2 MS. HIGGINS: It's from a Nacional report on the 5th of November,

3 1997 at the bottom of footnote 3. It states: "Cervenko said it is not

4 true that he was, in Knin, some kind of civil person."

5 And we know that he is referring to Mr. Cermak from the passage

6 slightly above. "These are rubbish. He was a military person. How can

7 someone be a civil governor in military uniform with General's rank with

8 the military units who support him. This is it simply funny."

9 Do you see that? Mr. Puhovski.

10 A. I do.

11 Q. Did you ever come to hear in the media or anywhere else as to

12 whether General Cervenko had actually ever stated that?

13 A. As far as I know, we carried the quotation from Nacional in the

14 report, and you have the date against which you can verify that.

15 Q. My question was whether it came to your attention as to whether

16 Mr. Cervenko had ever denied saying that? Was there of a denial of that

17 newspaper report, to your knowledge?

18 A. Forgive me, I misunderstood. I know of no denial.

19 MS. HIGGINS: In that case, could I ask for 2D09-0006 to be

20 brought up onto the screen, please.

21 Q. I'm going to wait so that you have the Croatian version, so that

22 the Bench has the English version.

23 This, Mr. Puhovski, is a newspaper article from the publication

24 Vjesnik dated the 6th of November, 1997, headed: "Cervenko, I did not

25 give an interview to Nacional."

Page 15950

1 In that article before you, he states that not only did he not

2 give the interview but that he denies the content and meaning of the

3 statements imposed on him. He then goes on to say:

4 "I confirm that I did not give this interview, and all that was

5 mentioned in the article is nothing but a simple construction drawn out

6 from one accidental and disjointed conversation that was secretly

7 recorded by the reporter, and then its content and meaning were roughly

8 twisted, and the reporter produced it as his answers and my alleged

9 replies."

10 He then explains: "I will request that the act of the reporter

11 and editorial board which are unheard of be discussed at the counsel of

12 the Croatian Media Association, said General Cervenko in his official

13 denial."

14 You never saw that, Mr. Puhovski?

15 A. No. I did see the following issues of Nacional in which they

16 were trying to prove that they were in possession of an audiotape to that

17 conversation, and that the journalist association did not follow up on

18 this request and did not discipline the journalist for unprofessional

19 conduct. That is why I believe the data to be reliable that it could be

20 published.

21 Q. So you did know about it?

22 A. I knew that there was discussion within Nacional itself. It

23 would be natural to have a denial carried by Nacional. I didn't know of

24 this denial. I did see, however, that Mr. Spanovic published in Nacional

25 that he had a tape of that conversation that he would show to anyone who

Page 15951

1 asked to. And he also stated that his home association did not

2 discipline him for any unprofessional conduct.

3 Q. So your report didn't think it appropriate or fair to put the

4 context of that quote that's cited properly, and the fact that the man

5 who was alleged to have said it made an official denial. That wasn't

6 something considered for your report? That what you're telling me?

7 A. To repeat, the contents were confirmed by Nacional we were

8 interested in the contents, not the format.

9 Q. Well, there it is, Mr. Puhovski.

10 MS. HIGGINS: I'd like to move on. Could I firstly ask that that

11 article be exhibited please.

12 MS. FROLICH: No objection, Mr. President.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Madam Registrar.

14 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours the document will become

15 Exhibit D1306.

16 JUDGE ORIE: And is admitted into evidence.

17 Please proceed.

18 MS. HIGGINS:

19 Q. Mr. Puhovski, did you come to know through any of your sources or

20 contacts on this subject, before we leave it, that General Cervenko had

21 in fact apologised to Mr. Cermak for any embarrassment this may have

22 caused him, given its inaccuracy? Did that come to your attention or

23 not?

24 A. No, I did not know that.

25 Q. I'm grateful. If we then work backwards, the second of your

Page 15952

1 sources that you rely upon for the comment that you made that you were

2 told by Mr. Pasic that Mr. Cermak was in charge, this was during a

3 ten-minute conversation with Mr. Pasic. Correct?

4 A. I think it lasted for 20 minutes.

5 Q. I think it's right that you said that you didn't have any notes

6 of that conversation. Is that right?

7 A. I said that I think it lasted between 20 and 30 minutes. That's

8 what I said two hours ago.

9 Q. I'm grateful.

10 Now, did you know that Mr. Pasic had made a statement to this

11 Tribunal, a written statement? Were you aware of that in your research

12 or work for the HHO?

13 A. I didn't know.

14 Q. I'd like to ask whether in the course of that conversation he

15 addressed certain matters with you, and I'd like to take to you certain

16 passages.

17 MS. HIGGINS: So could I ask that ICTY Prosecution statement of

18 Mr. Pasic, which is 2D09-0029, be called up, please.

19 A. I didn't discuss with Mr. Pasic any specific cases because I

20 wasn't familiar with any at the time. We were talking about the

21 situation in Knin and about what was being reported from Knin at the

22 time, as well as the atmosphere in town, which, to me, did not look like

23 things were under control. On three our four occasions in the course of

24 the discussion when we talked about that, he would say, Well, I have to

25 discuss such matters with General Cermak.

Page 15953

1 Q. I'm going to come on to more generic questions about what you

2 know about Cermak in a moment.

3 What I'd like to do, please, first of all, is to ask you whether

4 or not you and Mr. Pasic discussed certain matters.

5 For that I'd like the English page 4 to be brought up onto the

6 screen, please, of that document, and in B/C/S, that's page 7.

7 MS. HIGGINS: Yes, can I just, for the record, state that this

8 statement was taken, interviewers Brian Foster, Robert Casey, interview

9 dated 22nd and 23rd of November 2001, March 2002, and the 3rd of

10 March 2002.

11 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Higgins, I do not know what questions will

12 follow. But may I take it that these are questions that have been dealt

13 with already without reference to the statement of another potential

14 witness.

15 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, given that this witness had contact

16 with Mr. Pasic, I'd like to ask him whether he addressed certain issues

17 or was informed of certain issues to put his comment into context.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. If you first ask him, and then if Mr. Pasic

19 said anything similar or different, then, of course, I take it that

20 you'll ask for an explanation.

21 Please proceed.

22 MS. HIGGINS:

23 Q. Mr. Puhovski, the easiest way of doing this is perhaps if I rely

24 on information that I have, and then you can tell me yes or no, whether

25 or not those matters were discussed or comments made for the sake of

Page 15954

1 efficiency.

2 Did Mr. Pasic tell you that Mr. Cermak was in fact there in Knin

3 to assist civil authorities. Was that something he mentioned?

4 A. He said that everything that had to do with normalizing things

5 and civilian life in Knin had to go through General Cermak. I believe

6 that is the answer to your question.

7 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... normalisation of life.

8 A. And that's what we discussed.

9 Q. He didn't tell you about Mr. Cermak's area of responsibility, did

10 he? He talked to you about the general daily life in Knin. Would that

11 be right?

12 A. To repeat what I've just said, we didn't discuss any specific

13 cases, since, at that time, I wasn't familiar with any. We only talked

14 about what and how can be done in order to normalize the situation in

15 Knin. And most of the more important questions were answered by him

16 along the lines of, That's something we need to discuss with

17 General Cermak.

18 Q. Did he discuss with you anything concerning -- let me preface

19 this by saying this: That part of the report deals with General Cermak

20 either minimizing or denying crimes. There are references in the report

21 there. Did Mr. Pasic tell you, for example, that General Cermak, that he

22 was present with General Cermak, in daily meetings at the garrison and

23 that General Cermak was angry about what had been going on concerning the

24 crimes. Were you privy to information from Mr. Pasic on those matters or

25 not?

Page 15955

1 A. To repeat once again. I didn't discuss any crimes with Mr. Pasic

2 because I had no names and information about any victims of crimes as

3 something that I might be interested in as a member of the

4 Helsinki Committee. We discussed things such as electricity, water

5 supply, the police, road traffic, everything that had to do with the

6 normalisation of life in Knin. I was there in order to see what the

7 preconditions were for a visit of the IHF to Knin. At that time I had no

8 information on any crimes that I could show anyone or request that

9 someone be called to task about that, even if that had been my remit.

10 Q. Thank you. I'd like to just take you now to a line in the

11 report.

12 MS. HIGGINS: For the Bench's purposes, the page is page 12, and

13 for e-court English 14, Croatian 13.

14 Your Honour, while that is coming up, I would seek the admission

15 on the basis of the document which I have tendered concerning the ICTY

16 statement of Petar Pasic to be admitted MFI at this stage of the

17 proceedings.

18 MS. FROLICH: Mr. President, I believe it should only be

19 applicable to the portions of which the witness has given some evidence,

20 not the entire statement.

21 JUDGE ORIE: I don't think that the content of the statement was

22 put to the witness. I think you asked him questions, and upon my

23 guidance you did not refer to his statement, but you said that you would

24 rely on your own information.

25 So, therefore I'm -- of course, I'm not in a position to -- but

Page 15956

1 it's unclear to me what the purpose is of, at this moment, MFIing the

2 document is.

3 MS. HIGGINS: In that case I would seek to take him to the

4 passages to of Mr Pasic's statement which deals specifically with Mr.

5 Cermak and to ask him about them. I was trying to shortcut the necessity

6 to do so by abbreviating what I have got from the statement itself. But

7 if my learned friend objects to, at this stage, it being MFIed, then I

8 think I may have to go through the statement itself.

9 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And then, of course, I'm thinking about Rule

10 92 bis.

11 MS. HIGGINS: I appreciate that. That is the reason I have asked

12 for it to be simply MFIed at this stage of the proceedings.

13 JUDGE ORIE: I'm always criticized by my staff to have a too long

14 MFI list. And I'm just wondering that if for legal reasons we could

15 shorten it.

16 Ms. Frolich, could it be MFIed for the time being, and I think

17 all lawyers in this courtroom are aware that statements taken for the

18 purposes of proceedings before this Tribunal are not -- not easily

19 admitted into evidence without all the requirements under Rule 92 bis

20 having been met.

21 I leave it at this moment to you, whether you -- if you want to

22 confer with Mr. Waespi, then you have an opportunity to do so.

23 MS. FROLICH: Thank you, Mr. President.

24 [Prosecution counsel confer]

25 MS. FROLICH: There are no objections to the statement being

Page 15957

1 MFIed at this point, Mr. President.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Madam Registrar, could you please MFI the statement,

3 assign a number.

4 THE REGISTRAR: It will become Exhibit D1307, marked for

5 identification.

6 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you.

7 Ms. Higgins, I take it that any point in time, we'll have further

8 discussions on tendering and whether or not it should be admitted.

9 Please proceed.

10 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, given the way in which we have been

11 able to deal with this, it shortcuts the number of passages I would like

12 to deal with, but nonetheless there are two that I'd like to put to this

13 witness.

14 Q. Mr. Puhovski, I'm going to read you a passage, and I'd like your

15 comment on it. And I'm sorry if this will lead back to the same

16 conclusion concerning normalization of life, but let me just read this to

17 you:

18 "For Mr. Pasic's statement, as far as I know, Cermak was there to

19 assist the civil authorities. He would direct me to organise the feeding

20 of people which took place where Cermak had his office, HV Dom, and he

21 would push me to open the stores. Cermak had the logistics base and

22 about ten or so soldiers under him. He also insisted that there be a

23 public kitchen to feed the people who had no money. He wanted the civil

24 authority to function so that he would not be bothered with the feeding

25 of the people. Within a few days, we were able to get power and water

Page 15958

1 functioning in the town."

2 A passage, Mr. Puhovski, that again relates to normalisation and

3 may ring in your ears or at least some of the content of that concerning

4 normalization. Is that fair?

5 A. It is it correct. And to repeat, I only talked to Mr. Pasic

6 about these things, save for two or three margin ideal details inquiring

7 about some people that I had heard of wanting to learn of their fate.

8 But at that time he was unable to answer those.

9 Q. Mr. Pasic stated:

10 "I did not know Cermak's area of responsibility. I would meet

11 with him every day. There was an agenda, and those items on the agenda

12 would include, for example, an update on power supply, how to deal with

13 the Serbs in the UN compound, security matters. Cermak would be asking

14 what had been done on these issues, and people would respond. There were

15 discussions about killings, lootings, and destruction. Often it would be

16 Cermak who was telling us that these things were happening and asking

17 what was being done about it. It would have been the internationals that

18 would have reported these crimes to Cermak and myself at a different

19 meeting. I remember that Gambiroza would often say that there were not

20 enough policemen in Knin to cover such a large area."

21 Part of the report, Mr. Puhovski, of course, relates to those in

22 the UN compound with which you were familiar because you went down to

23 Knin and visited that area. Is that right? I see you're nodding.

24 A. That's right.

25 Q. Mr. Pasic stated, My belief was that the returning Serbs or those

Page 15959

1 who had remained and the internationals did not trust the Croatian police

2 to do their job properly.

3 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Higgins, you're reading ...

4 MS. HIGGINS: I'm sorry, Your Honour, too quickly. I am a

5 getting carried away. I will refrain.

6 JUDGE ORIE: Yes as long as you can take the transcriber with

7 you, then there is not problem, but, if not, then you should adapt to her

8 pace.

9 MS. HIGGINS: I understand, Your Honour, I will amend the pace.

10 Q. "Cermak would ask what had been done, and he was very unpleasant

11 to people and would shout at them if things had not been done. As far as

12 the killings, looting, and destruction was concerned, he was not happy

13 about it."

14 One final passage, Mr. Puhovski:

15 "At the meetings with the internationals, they would bring it up,

16 the crimes being committed, and ask for more police action, and Cermak

17 would say that there are just not enough men. The internationals wanted

18 enough check-points to stop people who were not from the villages going

19 there, and to stop the police patrols going there because the police were

20 not trusted. I personally think that they did have enough police, and if

21 they had done the job they should have done, a lot of the crimes would

22 have happened."

23 Now, Mr. Puhovski, have I asked you about the conversation. It

24 was clearly a brief one. You have dealt with it with me, concerning what

25 was discussed between Mr. Pasic and yourself. I'd like to now ask you

Page 15960

1 several more questions, just about the point that's now on the screen in

2 front of you, page 12 of that report.

3 Do you see on the first paragraph, the last line. It states:

4 "General Colonel Ivan Cermak was the military commander of Knin."

5 Do you see that?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Now, underneath that passage, there is a list of units, forces,

8 brigades, tanks which this report states took part in military operation

9 in Sector South.

10 Can you tell me - and again, I understand your role - but who was

11 responsible for writing this unreferenced, unsourced piece of text? Can

12 you help?

13 A. This was most certainly written by Petar Mrkalj. That's beyond

14 doubt.

15 Q. Your coming as the witness, so I'm going to ask you this

16 question. When you visited Knin, you didn't know what Mr. Cermak's job

17 was. Is that right?

18 A. That's right, I didn't know. When it comes to a formal function

19 I only knew that he was the person everyone turned to. He was in charge,

20 to put it that way.

21 Q. Well, he may have been the person that people turned to for

22 normalization of life, Mr. Puhovski, which is something very different

23 from a generic responsibility. Your discussions that you have told us

24 about concern his role in normalizing life. Correct?

25 A. I spoke about this with Mr. Pasic. I was discussing with him who

Page 15961

1 it was, who the International Helsinki Federation should be talking to

2 when they come to Knin, and his response was, Of course, with

3 General Cermak. And so they did.

4 Q. And part of the reason as to why they did that was because

5 General Cermak would speak to those organisations and would speak to the

6 press. That was the information had you, wasn't it?

7 A. Mr. Pasic told me as follows: You have to let me know in time so

8 that we can fit them into the schedule, because he is constantly being

9 bothered by such-and-such a person. I think that this is how he put it,

10 that there was always someone there, wanting to see General Cermak. He

11 didn't specific say who, but I suppose it was journalists people from the

12 country and abroad.

13 Q. Did you know or come to know that there was in fact no such

14 position as military commander of Knin, as is written here, at page 12?

15 A. If I recall this correctly, it was only in 1997 that this matter

16 was discussed.

17 Q. And there was no information from either yourself or the HHO

18 fact-finding mission members as to what resources he had available to

19 him, was there?

20 A. I didn't have any information to that effect. The colleagues

21 from the International Federation had already gathered some information

22 by that time, and, as far as I know, they conveyed the information to

23 General Cermak at their meeting.

24 Q. Did you or your colleagues know that he was in fact appointed as

25 the Knin garrison commander on the 5th of August, 1995? Was that

Page 15962

1 information you had?

2 A. That's the information contained in this report.

3 Q. Well, not by that title. That's the difference, Mr. Puhovski.

4 The title I have used does not -- you see the difference?

5 A. Of course. The function described in our text, in the Croatian,

6 the term is military commander, so it has been translated correctly.

7 That was the term colloquially used and widely used at the time by the

8 media as well, in reference to Mr. Cermak.

9 Q. Did you or your colleagues have the information that he had a

10 mere staff of nine individuals, from either your sources with Mr. Pasic

11 or other members that were spoken to?

12 A. Mr. Pasic told me that there were only a handful of them or that

13 there were -- there weren't enough of them, I don't remember exactly.

14 But he was complaining about the fact that weren't enough of them there

15 to run Knin. I didn't speak to him about police matters because did I go

16 to the police station afterwards. I do recall him saying that a lot of

17 the things were left uncovered, gaps were left where things could be

18 happening, and I do recall him saying and repeating there's too few of us

19 here, and I don't recall him specifically saying whether this included

20 the police or not, or everybody put together, but I did not go into the

21 matter since I was expected to go to the police station afterwards.

22 Q. Do you know of any records, yourself, of any of the HHO staff

23 members or fact-finding mission members having personally met with

24 Mr. Cermak? Part of your knowledge or not?

25 A. Following the meeting with the International Helsinki Federation,

Page 15963

1 I believe it was Mr. Cicak who had a meeting with Mr. Cermak, which

2 transpired at a much later stage, in autumn, I believe.

3 Q. Are there notes of that meeting?

4 A. I don't know that there are any. If there are any, they can

5 probably be found in the minutes because Mr. Cicak spoke about this at

6 the meeting of our executive board of the HHO, in October or November of

7 1995.

8 Q. Thank you. Have you or any of your colleagues had the

9 opportunity to review any of the extensive military documents which have

10 been part of this trial and looked at what was actually sent to

11 Mr. Cermak?

12 Now it's a specific question. If you haven't, just please say

13 so.

14 A. The answer is no, I did not.

15 Q. Now, Mr. Puhovski, part of your report also deals with the

16 displaced persons in the camp. The extract that I'd like to just very

17 quickly take you to starts --

18 MS. HIGGINS: For the Bench purposes hard copy page 21. For

19 e-court purposes, it's E 23 to E 24, Croatian 22 to 23.

20 Q. Again while that is coming on to the screen, let me say I'm not

21 going deal with what Mr. Cermak stated or what is stated there about

22 Mr. Cermak. But on that first page, there is reference to General Cermak

23 on August the 20th, contacting the representatives at the camp. It's

24 under number 3, and it's probably the third line down. If can you see

25 that, Mr. Puhovski.

Page 15964

1 Do you see that line?

2 A. I do.

3 Q. Did you or your colleagues come to know in the research that you

4 did you on Sector South, or the research that your fact-finding mission

5 members did, that the assistance that Mr. Cermak gave to those displaced

6 persons started way back, just after his appointment and is recorded in

7 UN reports as far as back as the 7th of August in 1995, when he expresses

8 a desire to meet with the refugees in the camp and the committee.

9 Is that something you came to know or not?

10 A. When I was at the camp, I heard that Mr. Cermak had been to see

11 them. I wasn't told when that exactly happened. The people who were in

12 a way taken carry of at the camp, as well as the UN personnel at the

13 camp, said that the situation was quite all right within the camp itself

14 but that was quite dangerous to venture outside.

15 MS. HIGGINS: For the Court's reference, the document I'm

16 referring to is P359. I'm not going to have it pulled up on to the

17 screen.

18 Q. Following on from that, Mr. Puhovski, did you come to hear that

19 there was a subsequent meeting on the 8th of August where in fact

20 measures were announced as to the rights that would be protected in

21 respect of those displaced persons in the camp, including, for example,

22 all civil rights and liberties, social security, settlement of pensions,

23 provision of food. Did you know about the issuing of that particular

24 document, or was something that didn't come to your attention?

25 A. I heard that from Mr. Pasic.

Page 15965

1 Q. Thank you.

2 MS. HIGGINS: For the Court's reference that's D300, the document

3 that I'm relying upon.

4 Q. Did you also come to hear through your contacts down in Knin that

5 General Cermak had been there contact with General Forand on the same

6 date asking for a list of refugees, specifically so that he could address

7 their problems. Is that something you had come across?

8 A. In the course of my visit to the camp, I learned that the

9 Croatian side had asked for a list of refugees -- or, rather, the persons

10 who were inside the camp. But I was not told what the reason for that

11 list was, and I wasn't given an answer to that question.

12 Q. I'm grateful. Thank you, Mr. Puhovski.

13 MS. HIGGINS: That document is P388, again not to be called up on

14 the screen. I know the Bench is very familiar by now with these

15 documents.

16 Q. Just to summarize, Mr. Puhovski, more meetings on the 10th, the

17 12th, and in fact a thank you letter that was sent out to Mr. Cermak on

18 the 15th, thanking for him for the assistance he had given to those in

19 the camp. Something you knew about or not?

20 A. I knew about the meetings. I didn't know the dates. And I

21 didn't know about the letter.

22 Q. You also knew, did you, from perhaps what was in the report and

23 what you had been told, that Mr. Cermak was giving assistance in terms of

24 issuing passes, along with the MUP who were also issuing passes, which

25 were also being handed out by Mr. Pasic, who we've spoken to.

Page 15966

1 Did you hear about that?

2 A. Yes. In the course of those days, I had a meeting with

3 Minister Jarnjak who was the minister of the interior at the time, and he

4 informed me about it.

5 Q. Thank you. Did you hear that the intention was to try and assist

6 people to a get around the area and to facilitate them to getting access

7 to their homes in what was nonetheless difficult circumstances at that

8 time. Would that be fair?

9 A. One could put it that way. In my conversation with

10 Minister Jarnjak and by that time around the 20th of August, I was

11 already better informed. I asked him to his surprise that people not be

12 released from the camp at the time, and that if they are released that

13 they be escorted. We had information to the effect that people leaving

14 the camp and going back to their villages were exposed to attacks.

15 Minister Jarnjak told me at that time that what I was saying went against

16 the interests of the people who wanted to go back to their homes. I told

17 him something that was perhaps inappropriate of me, but I believed I had

18 to tell him, and that was people are not aware of what is going on and

19 you have to make sure that they stayed there for as long as they can.

20 What I was telling him was based on the information I received about what

21 befell the individuals who went out of the camp.

22 Q. Changing tack a little bit, Mr. Puhovski, if you would take it

23 from me, as I think it may speed up the process, English page 83 of the

24 report, hard copy page, can be put on to the screen as E, English,

25 e-court 85, Croatian 82.

Page 15967

1 There is an reference in the middle of that page to Mr. Cermak,

2 stating that he did not report about atrocities that were occurring in

3 the region under his command. Moreover he tried everything to cover up

4 the incidents in public, justifying all that happened by emphasizing that

5 it was the conflict with Chetniks, in one word he tried to minimise the

6 whole problem.

7 Were you or your colleagues aware of both reports to the UN and

8 to the media of Mr. Cermak admitting that crimes were taking place or

9 expressing his unhappiness about what was happening in the area? Did any

10 of that come to your attention, Mr. Puhovski?

11 A. We knew about some of these matters. We were referring here to

12 something that can be seen in the documentary film, Storm over the

13 Krajina. The Croatian television broadcast Mr. Cermak's statement who

14 connected the events at Grubori with terrorist activities. We felt that

15 this was an evident attempt to cover up the events.

16 Q. Did it come to your attention. Again I know you had access to UN

17 reports, ICRC reports, various sources of information. Did you know

18 about on the 18th of August, a meeting with the UN between the UN and

19 General Cermak, an individual named Mr. Al-Alfi, recorded in that meeting

20 there when General Cermak was informed about villages being looted and

21 burnt. General Cermak making his comments about sharing his concern with

22 the UN and expressing his unhappiness about its continuation.

23 Something you knew about or not?

24 A. I came to know this later on, two weeks later, once Mr. Cicak had

25 spoken to UN representatives. I didn't have direct contacts with them at

Page 15968

1 that time. On their part, they only set us reports about victims and not

2 about their meetings.

3 Q. On that basis were you privy to or not information, again, from

4 the UN concerning a meeting they had with Mr. Cermak on the 24th of

5 August, where the UN brought to Mr. Cermak's attention the continuation

6 of burning houses and looting and asked him to stop such acts.

7 He accepted this fact, as is recorded in this note of the

8 meeting, regarding the continuation of such incidents and attributed to

9 them to people entering the area wearing HV uniforms and to civilians

10 taking revenge, stating that:

11 "The area was very vast and that he would be lying if he told us

12 that nothing of this sort would continue to happen but that he had

13 informed us, the UN, that he had already issued orders to the civilian

14 and military personnel to stop such acts."

15 Were those intentions of Mr. Cermak something that came, again,

16 to your radar?

17 A. Let me repeat this, as a non-governmental organisation, we had

18 contacts with international organisations to the extent that they knew

19 what we were dealing and then would report to us on dead bodies that were

20 found. They did not report to us on their political administrative or

21 other contacts.

22 MS. HIGGINS: One last document. D59 on to the screen, please.

23 Q. I know that you reviewed and had access to media articles because

24 many of them are cited within the report, Mr. Puhovski. I'd like you to

25 take a look at this article before I conclude this section and ask you

Page 15969

1 whether or not this ever came to your attention. It's a piece concerning

2 General Cermak, talking about there being no place for looters in the HV.

3 If you could read that and let me know whether or not you ever

4 saw that, please.

5 A. I was aware of this, and there was an extended version of this,

6 which was published one or two days later in the Vjesnik daily. So I'm

7 familiar with both.

8 Q. [Previous translation continues] ...

9 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, I have approximately another 15 to 20

10 minutes questioning to complete, which I hope will keep me relatively in

11 line with my estimate. I wonder if Your Honour would care to take the

12 break now and for me to resume after the break.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. We will have the break now. And then for the

14 second in line, there will not be much time left today for

15 cross-examination.

16 We take a break, and we'll resume at ten minutes to 1.00.

17 --- Recess taken at 12.27 p.m.

18 --- On resuming at 12.51 p.m.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Before we continue, we received an e-mail by the

20 Cermak Defence on videolink. It's Friday, and if a videolink has to be

21 organised, the registry would like to start as soon as possible.

22 MR. MISETIC: The General Gotovina Defence has no objection to

23 the videolink.

24 MR. MIKULICIC: As well we are not opposing the videolink, but we

25 are opposing the protective measures. [Overlapping speakers] ...

Page 15970

1 JUDGE ORIE: That's another matter. The urgency is in the

2 videolink.

3 MR. MIKULICIC: So no problem with the videolink as it refers to

4 Markac Defence.

5 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

6 Then, Ms. Higgins.

7 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, I have reviewed the questions that I

8 had, and in fact I have covered everything that I wanted to cover with

9 Mr. Puhovski, and I thank him for answering my questions.

10 Can I just answer one of Your Honours' questions which related to

11 whether or not a comprehensive analysis had been done in respect of the

12 tables or whether they were examples only. I have had confirmation from

13 my team that was a comprehensive analysis, and those were the elements

14 that were drawn out in the table.

15 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you --

16 MS. HIGGINS: Thank you.

17 JUDGE ORIE: [Previous translation continues] ... for that

18 information. I think you also owed me a review or whether it was 27 --

19 no, 17, 28 -- for the last two they know that they are included in a list

20 which would be maximum 28 and minimum 17.

21 MS. HIGGINS: Yes.

22 JUDGE ORIE: Could you give us --

23 MS. HIGGINS: I do owe you that review, and I would like to be

24 able to pass that information to the Chamber later today, if I may.

25 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Just in order to have things clearly on the

Page 15971

1 record, the relatively large portion you read from a statement which is

2 MFIed is -- I would like to emphasize that that is not in evidence, and

3 although I'm not perfectly clear about how the link with the questions

4 was, I'd like to -- to put that clearly on the record.

5 Then next in line will be you Mr. Misetic.

6 Thank you Ms. Higgins.

7 MR. MISETIC: Yes, thank you, Mr. President.

8 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Puhovski, you will now be cross-examined by

9 Mr. Misetic who is counsel for Mr. Gotovina. And you're invited to

10 conclude in 25 minutes from now.

11 MR. MISETIC: Yes, Mr. President.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.

13 Cross-examination by Mr. Misetic:

14 Q. Mr. Puhovski. Good afternoon.

15 A. [In English] Good afternoon.

16 Q. I would like to start off by --

17 MR. MISETIC: Madam Registrar, if we could turn to the HHO report

18 at page 153 in the English in e-court and 146 in the B/C/S. This is 65

19 ter 4674.

20 Q. I'll tell you what I'm putting up on the screen, Professor. This

21 is the portion of the report that deals with alleged civilian killings in

22 Knin, and you will see that there is one reference to one individual

23 being killed by a grenade in Knin.

24 MR. MISETIC: If we can pull that up. There it is.

25 Q. It is entry number 212 for an individual named

Page 15972

1 Momcilo Marjanovic.

2 Do you see that on the screen?

3 A. [In English] Yes.

4 Q. Now my question is, as it relates to Knin, the only individual

5 identified by the HHO to have been killed by shelling or a grenade in

6 Knin that was a civilian is in fact Momcilo Marjanovic. Correct?

7 A. [Interpretation] It is.

8 Q. In terms of the HHO's work, did family members of people come

9 forward to you with the names of any individuals, loved ones, friends,

10 et cetera, whom they said had been killed in the shelling of Knin, other

11 than someone who gave you information about Mr. Marjanovic?

12 A. To repeat, we received several hundreds of reports of people

13 claiming that their family members disappeared in various locations from

14 Knin to Hrvatska Kostajnica. We checked many of those allegations,

15 although some we were unable to check. Some were proven false, whereas

16 others were not. That's all can I tell you about in Knin in this

17 context.

18 Q. With respect to Mr. Marjanovic specifically, did you ever obtain

19 any information that in fact he was a high-ranking official of the Knin

20 SUP or the Secretariat of Internal Affairs?

21 A. Subsequently I learned that from an article, from the

22 Belgrade Politika, I believe, a Belgrade paper. In that context he was

23 referred to as such in 1997 or 1998. However, his title seemed

24 irrelevant to us in relation to the fact that he was killed by a grenade.

25 Q. Okay. Turning to a different topic, do you have any familiarity

Page 15973

1 with an incident that occurred I believe up in Sector North with Serbian

2 RSK tanks running over their own civilians in a column. Are you familiar

3 with such an incident?

4 A. We received that by way of a report from the Helsinki Committee

5 of Republika Srpska sometime in spring 1996.

6 Q. Since you have some knowledge, let me show you a video-clip of

7 what allegedly took place and then I will ask you a few questions about

8 it.

9 MR. MISETIC: And, Madam Registrar, this clip is 1D67-0218.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Misetic, although Ms. Frolich does not object,

11 of course, as soon as we move to Sector North, I usually hear many voices

12 saying that that is irrelevant for our case, or is that only for --

13 MR. MISETIC: Well, there is a reason, and that is --

14 [Overlapping speakers] ...

15 JUDGE ORIE: If you have considered it --

16 MR. MISETIC: I have.

17 JUDGE ORIE: [Previous translation continues] ... carefully so

18 that we do not -- I mean, if behaviour of one party in Sector North is

19 relevant, it may be for the other as well. But if there is any specific

20 matter then we'll wait and see, and it's now on the record that you have

21 carefully considered that.

22 MR. MISETIC: I will tell you essentially what my question will

23 be, is with respect it the -- the report talks about missing people.

24 Obviously, some people started off in Sector South and wound up in the

25 north.

Page 15974

1 JUDGE ORIE: Okay. that's sufficient explanation for the time

2 being.

3 Please proceed.

4 [Videotape played]

5 "THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] Here we see this was one of the SDS

6 officials in the area of Komogovina. We possess his other documents as

7 well. This is a column of Serb refugees they let out of Petrinja to

8 travel via Popovaca 1.03.12 towards Lipovjani. This is the entrance into

9 the memorial area Samarica which was an extremely difficult terrain to

10 pass through, as it is a mountainous and woody area, which the Serbs side

11 had quite successfully fortified with ample ammunition and many shelters.

12 Almost every Serb village had an ammunition warehouse next to it. This

13 is it an important piece of information. Yes, this is a horrific site we

14 have never before seen. Five kilometres of horror and tragedy, where the

15 Serb Chetnik army of Mile Novakovic fled from the sudden courageous

16 incursion of the Croatian army, and in a panic, flight of tanks ran over

17 its own column of refugees as they were preventing their cross over to

18 the Bosnian side. In this way they were able to save part of their heavy

19 weaponry, but they killed many. Precisely. In the panicked fear they

20 wanted to flee as soon as possible, forgetting about their other

21 population, their civilians who fleeing as well, clogged the road, a few

22 kilometres before Dvor Na Uni, and simply when the Croatian army in its

23 second incursion caught up with them, they simply ran their tanks over

24 the civilians. Do we know how people were killed there? Well, hundreds

25 of people died there, and believe me, I would have been better off had I

Page 15975

1 never seen such horror. This is the moment they reached the border with

2 Bosnia-Herzegovina. Yes, we will hear about this."

3 MR. MISETIC:

4 Q. Now, Mr. Puhovski, do you have, first of all, any information

5 about the number of people that may have been run over there in that

6 column of refugees?

7 A. I cannot tell you anything with any degree of certainty. I seem

8 to recall the figure of 82 from the report of the RS Helsinki Committee.

9 However, I saw that report a number of years ago, and I don't know

10 whether it is correct. What I am certain though that it was 100. I

11 couldn't verify it any further. I can only refer you to the report we

12 received from their Helsinki Committee.

13 Q. Do you know whether any of the civilians that were up in that

14 area had been civilians who started off in Sector South and would have

15 been travelling up through Sector North?

16 A. I don't know about that much. I only know that five or six

17 people from the area of Hrvatska Kostajnica were confirmed as being in

18 that column. That's what I can tell you. I don't know about the rest.

19 Q. Do you know of any other incidents in addition to this one where

20 Serbian forces in their effort to escape may have caused injury or death

21 to any refugees in their own columns?

22 A. In our report, there is a mention of a Serb plane opening fire

23 and hitting several civilians. They claimed it was a Croatian plane.

24 But from various testimonies, one could clearly conclude it was a Serb

25 plane. I cannot recall off the cuff what page of the report that was.

Page 15976

1 We also had reports of three or four our situations in which the smaller

2 columns which were supposed to join the main one were stopped by units of

3 the so-called RSK in withdrawal, and there were arguments, sometimes

4 violent, as refers the part just following Petrinja, we had information

5 of a skirmish where three or four people were killed. However we had

6 only one source of that and, as such, we did not enter it in the report.

7 Q. Thank you, Mr. Puhovski.

8 MR. MISETIC: Mr. President, I tender 1D67-0218 into evidence,

9 please.

10 MS. FROLICH: Mr. President, if I could just inquire.

11 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Frolich, yes.

12 MS. FROLICH: This heading HTV Slikom na sliku is this from the

13 original programming, or is that what was superimposed by the Defence?

14 MR. MISETIC: We put the title of the programme and the date of

15 the programme on there.

16 MS. FROLICH: Yes. Other than, obviously, the geographical

17 relevance, we do not have any objections to the video.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Just for me to understand completely what exactly --

19 and I made similar comments this morning to -- in relation to Prosecution

20 Exhibit. What exactly does it add? And what exactly is the relevance

21 apart from that people who had apparently left Sector South encountered a

22 rather misfortune, perhaps at least some of them in Sector North? The

23 pictures are such. I'm just wondering whether --

24 MR. MISETIC: The report has an entire section on missing people,

25 and to the accident that that is one explanation for why people could be

Page 15977

1 missing, I think it is relevant.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, you would say without the images, the story

3 would be exactly the same.

4 MR. MISETIC: Well, I mean, without the images, then they could

5 be more disputed in closing argument than with the -- [Overlapping

6 speakers] ...

7 JUDGE ORIE: [Overlapping speakers] ... Yes, yes. Okay.

8 No objections.

9 [Trial Chamber confers]

10 JUDGE ORIE: Madam Registrar.

11 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, the video-clip and the transcript

12 will become exhibit number D1308.

13 JUDGE ORIE: And is admitted into evidence.

14 MR. MISETIC: Thank you, Mr. President.

15 Q. Professor Puhovski, I'd like to ask you about some comments you

16 made to a documentary producer. Do you recall being interviewed by a

17 producer about Jack Baric about a documentary being made about General

18 Gotovina in October 2006?

19 A. I do.

20 MR. MISETIC: I'd like to play a clip of that interview. This is

21 from the documentary film, Gotovina -- the interview took place on the

22 11th of October, 2006.

23 Madam Registrar, it is 1D67-0248.

24 [Videotape played]

25 JUDGE ORIE: One second please. One second.

Page 15978

1 It's not transcribed. I heard French translation. And then, of

2 course, on the basis of that French translation, there will be a French

3 transcript being made, although not in this country. Could we

4 re-start -- have you received the transcript? Have the transcript been

5 distributed? Because we all know that if there's a live recording, that

6 no one is able to follow that at the right speed.

7 MR. MISETIC: Yes, Mr. President, I'm advised there is a

8 transcript that has been sent, and I should ask the English booth to read

9 from the transcript, so that I guess things are slower.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, that's a new procedure.

11 THE COURT REPORTER: Just give me a copy of it.

12 JUDGE ORIE: If there is a spare copy, then the transcript could

13 be produced in the usual way.

14 I think, Madam Registrar, is already assisting.

15 So let re-start the video.

16 [Videotape played]

17 "In my understanding, the analysis that was prepared by the

18 Helsinki Committee, most of the killings were basically results of

19 attempts to plunder the houses, to take everything that was found in the

20 houses. And, in average, it would look like this. Half past 11.00 in

21 the night, there was no electricity for 30 kilometres after the war in a

22 small village 15 kilometres from Knin in the mountains, a group of three

23 or four Croat citizens, some of them in uniform, some of them without

24 uniforms, having one week from one of the towns in Dalmatia or in Lika,

25 would try to enter a Serbian house to take everything that was there, and

Page 15979

1 found out that suddenly the house was not empty. The first four houses

2 in the village were empty because most of the people have left the area.

3 And in the fifth house, they would find an old couple of, let's say, 65,

4 70, 75 years, and they would kill them after awaking them with their

5 entrance because they didn't want to have witnesses. That's one part.

6 Another part was during the operation when they were killing some of

7 these civilians for revenge. But also because they were somehow

8 expecting them to fight and not to just to evacuate the area. There is a

9 very simple fact that practically no one is ready to say publicly the

10 whole operation was realized, it was completed, in the pace of 145 square

11 kilometres per hour. This is more like a safari than the military

12 operation, and this is a mountain area. So if you have such a pace, you

13 all the time watch behind your back because you believe they may be

14 trying to entrap you, and they were somewhere behind in" --

15 JUDGE ORIE: I think all the translations have finished.

16 MR. MISETIC: Thank you, Mr. President.

17 Q. Professor Puhovski, you seem to be describing there some of the

18 factors that were involved in how people were killed. Do you wish to add

19 anything to what we saw you say on the film there?

20 A. Nothing has changed since. This is a post-factum analysis

21 pursuant to the information we had following our report.

22 Q. Now at one point in the video you say that on average what would

23 happen is three or four people would come into a village essentially

24 looking to steal and would happen upon people unexpectedly and would kill

25 them. When you say "on average," was that a typical situation in terms

Page 15980

1 of what happened with many of the people killed after Storm?

2 A. It was a hypothetical situation. It was supposed to illustrate

3 -- perhaps I should have said it would have been a typical situation for

4 what we were able to ascertain in several dozens of cases. People were

5 found in their bedrooms or on the stairs from the first floor to the

6 ground floor coming down, and there would only be one couple left behind

7 in a hamlet. That brought us to the conclusions that I used in this

8 hypothetical situation, which basically corresponded to a number of very

9 real situations.

10 Q. Thank you.

11 MR. MISETIC: Mr. President I tender 1D67-0248 into evidence.

12 MS. FROLICH: No objections, Mr. President.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Madam Registrar.

14 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will become Exhibit D1309.

15 JUDGE ORIE: And is admitted into evidence.

16 MR. MISETIC:

17 Q. Professor Puhovski, in your supplemental statement at

18 paragraph 23, which is P2317, you comment that no one ever mentioned

19 General Ante Gotovina in relation to the crimes.

20 And I was wondering if you could further expound on that. When

21 you say "no one," who were you referring to?

22 A. We, and when I say we, I have in mind our colleague who worked in

23 the field, tried to put as many open questions as possible without any

24 suggestions in terms of content. Based on such questions, the answers

25 varied. For example, one of them was were there any military units in

Page 15981

1 close proximity to a location where a body was found, and then we would

2 get answers Croats, Serbs, this unit, or that unit. And then people

3 would frequently volunteer information without being asked specifically.

4 They would provide us with names of people whom they believed were

5 responsible, whether they were commanders or some such.

6 In one of my answers to the Prosecution, I said that

7 Mr. Gotovina's name was never mentioned in any of such instances.

8 Q. Okay. Now, if I could take you back for a moment, Professor, 65

9 ter 7150, which - let me see - that is Exhibit P2320, Madam Registrar.

10 Now, Professor, this is the article that you drafted, I believe

11 you said in August 1995, although it's misdated as May 1995. And you

12 talk about -- in the second paragraph it says:

13 "The military action was also a brilliantly organised example of

14 ethnic cleansing. The speed of the Croatian victory came as a surprise

15 for many diplomates and analysts."

16 And then it says:

17 "But the Serbs in Krajina, at least among the leadership, we were

18 not surprised at all. From the very beginning of the action, they were

19 not -- they were ready not only to flee but even to organise the escape

20 of the entire population of their self-declared state. Indeed, Knin

21 propaganda over the years - that Serbs could never safely live within

22 Croatia - ultimately contributed to their flight."

23 Before I move to the next part of your essay, I wanted to stop

24 there and ask if could you further expand on what you know about the

25 organisation of the escape of the entire population.

Page 15982

1 A. I know three things: First, one week before the operation began,

2 when there were negotiations about the Z-4 plan in the so-called

3 Republika Srpska Krajina, they began organizing the so-called points that

4 were supposed to use to extract the population. I know that from

5 conversations with several people who were in the civilian and military

6 apparatus of that entity whom I met after the war.

7 I also saw some documents to that effect. At that time, however,

8 I knew only two things. One, that the strongest units had been withdrawn

9 from Republika Srpska Krajina. I can perhaps illustrate that by way of

10 an anecdote. On the second day of Operation Storm, I came to the main

11 square in Zagreb Bana Jelacica Square and one -- I was one of the five

12 people at the square. It was completely empty. Partly it was because it

13 was the summer season, but partly because many expected that there would

14 be even heavier bombardment of Zagreb than the one that had occurred in

15 May after Operation Flash. Everyone presumed this is was a bigger

16 operation with bigger consequences. No one knew that the rocket systems

17 had been withdrawn, taken out of the hands of those in Knin. It turned

18 out that they were unable to organise themselves and that their army was

19 unable to defend.

20 All of the people, or at least a very high percentage of the

21 people from the area, had planned routes to leave their homes and that

22 became evident in the course of the first few days. This text was

23 drafted on the 18th or the 19th of August.

24 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Misetic, before you continue, we will need the

25 time, and in order to avoid clashes with other Trial Chambers, I would

Page 15983

1 invite you to --

2 MR. MISETIC: I assure you, Judge, I will be disciplined and stop

3 on time.

4 JUDGE ORIE: That's a word some people use, yes.

5 MR. MISETIC: I have one question left on this document, and we

6 can stop.

7 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

8 MR. MISETIC: If we can turn the page, Madam Registrar.

9 Q. Now in the upper left-hand corner, you talk about the Croatian

10 army facilitated the population movement, and you say that this was done

11 -- it says the details including the targeting of Knin and other cities

12 and treatment of civilians during mop-up actions remain to be fully

13 investigated.

14 But, you say:

15 "At the same time, in every Croatian manoeuvre, openings were

16 provided. The Croatian army declined completely to surround any Serbian

17 town, escape routes marked and controlled by both Croatian forces and the

18 UN were not only used by civilians but also by complete units of the

19 Serbian Krajina forces ..."

20 My question to you was, when you were writing this, did you think

21 there might be a military logic in actually allowing military and

22 civilians to leave, rather than encircling them and potentially causing

23 greater bloodshed in a -- in a siege-type situation?

24 A. I made several public statements on that. And I said that if

25 there exists an indirect or direct agreement between Belgrade and Zagreb,

Page 15984

1 then I supported it. I was quite clear on that. My personal view is,

2 and, of course, I'm not a military expert, that the intention was -- my

3 personal view is that the intention was to actually allow the military

4 units to smoothly leave the area, although I was not an expert enough to

5 know if this was realistically possible or not.

6 Q. Thank you for answering my questions today. We'll pick up on

7 Monday, but we have to deal with other matters.

8 MR. MISETIC: Thank you.

9 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Puhovski, I'd like to instruct you as I did

10 before that you should not speak with anyone about the testimony, the

11 testimony already given or still to be given, and we would like to see

12 you back. Unfortunately, we have to take another 20 minutes to deal with

13 other matters, but we'd like to see you back on Monday, the 16th of

14 February, 9.00 in the morning. Well --

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] May I put a question to Your

16 Honour?

17 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Although I will --

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] May I count on me leaving The Hague

19 on Tuesday?

20 JUDGE ORIE: I think Tuesday should be no problem. But I don't

21 know what time you had in mind. Would you mean to finish on Monday and

22 then to leave on Tuesday or to -- because if I look at our --

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Correct. That's what I had in

24 mind.

25 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

Page 15985

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This is what I was told yesterday.

2 JUDGE ORIE: In your presence, I'll ask Mr. Misetic.

3 MR. MISETIC: Mr. President, I will certainly finish on Monday.

4 But as you recall, I think you recall we have another witness on Monday

5 as well, so I don't know how we're going to [Overlapping speakers] ...

6 JUDGE ORIE: [Overlapping speakers] ... And I think you said you

7 would need two sessions or a day.

8 MR. MISETIC: With this witness?

9 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

10 MR. MISETIC: I say two sessions. I'm well on my way, so ...

11 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Could we try to do our utmost best. I don't

12 know what we are on Tuesday scheduled for, morning or afternoon. Your

13 travel arrangement, Mr. Puhovski, are to leave at what time on Tuesday?

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] My intention was to leave on the

15 only direct flight there is, it's 11.00 a.m., if possible.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Then we'll further -- first of all, I'll speak

17 with the parties and see -- and we'll also see whether we can get any

18 additional time on Monday, in case we might not be able to finish.

19 Mr. Mikulicic, could you give already on the basis of what you

20 have heard until now, a further estimate.

21 MR. MIKULICIC: Well, Your Honour, I will stay with my previous

22 estimation, that means two sessions, but I will try to squeeze it up as

23 more as I could able to do it because that depends also on Mr. Misetic

24 cross.

25 MS. FROLICH: Mr. President, at this point I have only a few

Page 15986

1 points to raise with the witness on redirect.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. So you would not need more time.

3 Madam Registrar, could we inquire into what our possibilities

4 would be for Monday in the afternoon, because Monday morning might be

5 just not enough.

6 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

7 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. All courtrooms are booked for Monday in the

8 afternoon. The only other way out, I was just looking at today's court

9 schedule, I don't know whether there would be, of course, it is very late

10 for the registry, I am aware of that. But to organise it all, but just

11 the parties would, they oppose against --

12 MR. MISETIC: I would be agreeable to that, Mr. President.

13 JUDGE ORIE: And the other ...

14 MS. HIGGINS: No opposition, but if there was a different

15 courtroom, then that would be great.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, yes. I noted it's extremely late, but at least

17 there is no other Chamber using this courtroom or any of the other two

18 courtrooms this afternoon.

19 MR. MIKULICIC: Your Honour, if that could be of any assistance,

20 I'm familiar with the flight schedule for Zagreb, and there is also a

21 flight via Frankfurt on 5.00 in the afternoon, so maybe it could be of if

22 any help for our witness.

23 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Puhovski, you see that all of us are trying to

24 accommodate you as good as possible, so to take care that you Tuesday

25 evening at home again. Whatever course it will take is uncertain at this