Page 10503
1 Wednesday, 27 August 2014
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness takes the stand]
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.03 a.m.
6 JUDGE DELVOIE: Good morning to everyone in and around the
7 courtroom.
8 Madam Registrar, could you call the case, please.
9 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours.
10 This is the case IT-04-75-T, the Prosecutor versus Goran Hadzic.
11 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
12 May we have the appearances, please, starting with the
13 Prosecution.
14 MR. STRINGER: Good morning, Mr. President, Your Honours. For
15 the Prosecution, Douglas Stringer; Sarah Clanton; Case Manager,
16 Thomas Laugel, legal intern, Ivana Parac.
17 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
18 For the Defence, Mr. Zivanovic.
19 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Good morning, Your Honours. For the Defence of
20 Goran Hadzic, Zoran Zivanovic and Christopher Gosnell, with legal intern
21 Philipp Mueller. Thank you.
22 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
23 Mr. Hadzic, I remind you that you're still under oath.
24 Please continue, Mr. Stringer.
25 MR. STRINGER: Thank you, Mr. President.
Page 10504
1 WITNESS: GORAN HADZIC [Resumed]
2 [Witness answered through interpreter]
3 Examination by Mr. Stringer: [Continued]
4 Q. Good morning, Mr. Hadzic.
5 A. Good morning.
6 Q. Before we move ahead in my outline, I'd like to go back to just a
7 couple of things that came from yesterday's testimony. And the first of
8 these relates to the statement you made about Lieutenant-General Mandaric
9 who was the commander of the Vojvodina TO. Yesterday we discussed your
10 meeting with him that occurred in July of 1991. Do you remember that?
11 A. I remember.
12 Q. And what you said yesterday and this is at page 81 of yesterday's
13 provision transcript. I don't have the -- the final page number. You
14 said:
15 "Mandaric's office was not the place where you could discuss
16 anything serious. Mandaric did not belong to the formal command of the
17 JNA nor did I have any contact with any operative commanders in the JNA,
18 people who decided anything."
19 Now, Mr. Hadzic, I'm going to put it to you, in fact, that you
20 were not truthfully minimising the function, the rank, and the role that
21 was played by General Mandaric when you were having your meeting with him
22 in July.
23 MR. STRINGER: And on that I would like to go to 65 ter 1D00107.
24 Mr. President, there is no tab number for this. We've added it
25 after yesterday's testimony.
Page 10505
1 JUDGE DELVOIE: Okay.
2 MR. STRINGER:
3 Q. Mr. Hadzic, this is dated a couple of months after the time of
4 your meeting with Mr. Mandaric. What this is is September 28th, 1991,
5 excerpt from an order of the commander of the TO of the
6 Autonomous Province, Vojvodina, on the detachment and resubordination of
7 the brigades of the Vojvodina TO.
8 And we'll walk -- perhaps before we look at it, let's just go to
9 page 4 of the English, page 5 of the B/C/S so that we can see whose
10 signature this appears over.
11 Can we agree that this is a document signed by
12 Lieutenant-General Mandaric, Mr. Hadzic, Nikola Mandaric? Major-General,
13 I should say.
14 A. I see his signature for the first time now. I know as much as
15 you, as far as the signature is concerned. But it's obvious that this is
16 his document.
17 Q. And this is the gentleman with whom you met in late July 1991?
18 A. Nikola Mandaric. This is what we read.
19 Q. And going back to page 2 of the English, paragraph 1 of the
20 order, I just want to discuss with you a couple of things he's doing here
21 in September. For example, in paragraph 1, item 1 he is resubordinating
22 the TO Panonska Partisan Brigade in the sector of Trpinja village, Borovo
23 Selo. Do you see that?
24 A. I see.
25 Q. And as you go down what you see is that he is actually
Page 10506
1 resubordinating and assigning other TO units who are active in the
2 theatre, that is, in Croatia, in Eastern Slavonia, these being Serbian TO
3 units. Can we agree on that?
4 A. We can. But I don't understand, really, anything about these
5 matters.
6 Q. Once we've gone through it, I'll come back to my point.
7 Item 4, he is resubordinating here anti-aircraft defence light
8 artillery battery with eight weapons from the Sombor municipal TO Staff,
9 and it goes on.
10 Page 4 of the English, item 6, which is on page 4 of 12 of the
11 B/C/S version:
12 "Two detachments - volunteers from the Republic of Serbia - have
13 already been engaged as part of forces blocking Borovo Naselje-Brsadin."
14 And then in item 7, "due to the complexity of logistics support,"
15 and he then refers to logistic bases which have been formed in these
16 places, including, Backa Palanka in the Sid sector. These being --
17 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic.
18 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Sorry, my transcript doesn't work.
19 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
20 JUDGE DELVOIE: Someone is coming. We'll pause for a moment.
21 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
22 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic, there seems to be a little problem
23 with the technician who is occupied somewhere else. Could you handle it
24 with the LiveNote screen?
25 MR. ZIVANOVIC: I tried, Your Honours. I could follow it on the
Page 10507
1 central -- central screen, but I -- I cannot follow the -- read the
2 documents at the same time. I can use the centre screen here.
3 JUDGE DELVOIE: Okay. And --
4 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Not in the same time to follow the documents --
5 JUDGE DELVOIE: And on your screen -- on your screen --
6 MR. ZIVANOVIC: On my screen, my screen is dead.
7 JUDGE DELVOIE: Your screen is dead.
8 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Yeah.
9 JUDGE DELVOIE: Okay.
10 MR. STRINGER: Mr. President, my solution is I -- I -- I think
11 for virtually all of these I've brought the original language version
12 into the courtroom with me, and, as I have done a few times with
13 Mr. Hadzic, I could offer my B/C/S versions of them to Mr. Zivanovic and
14 he could look at them in the hard copy.
15 JUDGE DELVOIE: Would that assist, Mr. Zivanovic?
16 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Yes, it would.
17 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you. Then we'll proceed that way.
18 Mr. Zivanovic, we will continue. If there is a problem on your
19 side, you'll tell us; right?
20 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Microphone not activated]
21 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
22 Please proceed, Mr. Stringer.
23 MR. STRINGER: Thank you, Your Honours.
24 Q. Mr. Hadzic, just about finished with this document. We were
25 looking at page 4 of the English under item 7 where at the end of his
Page 10508
1 order, Major-General Mandaric is saying that:
2 "The established PB, that is, logistics base, are intended to --
3 as support to gather, procure and distribute all necessary supplies
4 intended for all JNA and TO forces which are active in Baranja,
5 Eastern Slavonia and Western Srem."
6 Do you see that?
7 A. [No interpretation]
8 Q. So despite --
9 A. I see.
10 Q. So despite what you said yesterday when you claimed that
11 Mr. Mandaric was really not in a position to provide you with weapons and
12 assistance, the fact is he is just precisely the kind of person to whom
13 you would be going for weaponry because he was the commander of the TO in
14 Vojvodina, and he was a career major-general of the
15 Yugoslav People's Army; correct?
16 A. It's true that he was a major-general in the
17 Yugoslav People's Army but the rest that you said is not correct, and I
18 can explain it as soon as you let me.
19 Q. Go ahead.
20 A. If I remember well, yesterday when we were discussing it you
21 connected my chance visit to General Mandaric with a chance acquaintance
22 of mine with that meeting without appointment concerning the attack on
23 Dalj. There was no discussion about that, nor did I know that Mandaric
24 was deciding anything. Nobody informed me. I never saw this paper. And
25 I don't know about that. At that time, Mandaric was making fun of us,
Page 10509
1 asking us to show on the map who was born where, and bantering. And you
2 connected it with the attack on Dalj, and you said that I was giving
3 statement when Branko Kostic came. I gave statements every day. I'm
4 here to testify. I am not on a TV quiz show or an IQ test. My IQ is not
5 sufficient to take on the combined IQs of the Prosecution team. I don't
6 know what Mandaric was doing. I never saw this document before. At that
7 time he was commander of the TO. The knowledge that I had then and even
8 the knowledge that I have now, he was commander of the TO of Vojvodina or
9 something. Anyway he was not commanding forces on the ground. I still
10 think that. That's what I said. Whether he changed position later
11 whether he provided logistical support to the JNA in part of Vojvodina, I
12 don't know and I cannot contest it, but that has nothing to do with the
13 attack on Dalj and that's why I made the comment I made. That's number
14 one.
15 And number two, you accused me yesterday of having been to see
16 Mandaric about weapons, about having seen the retired General Pekic and
17 Mr. Djordjevic, although it's true I went to see that retired general but
18 he had no powers at all. And the indictment charges me with
19 participating in the most serious joint criminal enterprise together with
20 the highest officials -
21 Q. Thank you --
22 A. -- in Vojvodina and in Serbia --
23 Q. Mr. Hadzic --
24 A. -- you are contradicting yourself --
25 Q. Yeah, I apologise for cutting across you there, but I think you
Page 10510
1 have gone way fair afield from the essence of my question.
2 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Sorry, Your Honours, Mr. Hadzic spoke very --
3 very fast, and I notice that two for me very important part of his
4 statement was not transcribed. And he is -- he repeated it two times.
5 He -- he said that he didn't know what Mandaric will do after their
6 meeting.
7 JUDGE DELVOIE: Well, Mr. Zivanovic, I'm not surprised that the
8 interpreters missed some part of this speech of Mr. Hadzic. I told him
9 with gestures on two occasions to slow down.
10 Mr. Hadzic, you should slow down your speech a little bit. If
11 you -- if you don't, we get this kind of problems and incidents, and it
12 takes more time than it would if you spoke on a normal speed. So please
13 be aware of that.
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I apologise. But on
15 two occasions, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the Prosecutor
16 was about to interrupt me. And when he interrupts me, I lose my thread
17 of thought and I forget what I was about to say and what I think is
18 important for you to know. And that's why I hurried up. And that also
19 happened yesterday, and I really apologise.
20 JUDGE DELVOIE: Until now, Mr. Hadzic, I didn't see any problem
21 in Prosecutor -- the Prosecution interrupting you because the Prosecution
22 wants you - and that's the aim of your being on the witness-stand for the
23 moment and during cross -- wants you to answer his questions and not
24 giving long speeches that do not answer those questions. So please take
25 that into account as well.
Page 10511
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.
2 JUDGE DELVOIE: Please proceed, Mr. Stringer.
3 MR. STRINGER:
4 Q. Mr. Hadzic, keep in mind you are going to have an opportunity on
5 re-direct to add things as you and your counsel wish, but I am mindful of
6 the time that's -- remains for this cross-examination. And so I will be
7 intervening and trying to stop you if I feel like the response is going
8 on too long or is not actually a response to the question. I hope you'll
9 understand that.
10 You -- just to set the context, you don't disagree, do you, that
11 you in your capacity as prime minister-elect in July of 1991 appointed
12 Mr. Milakovic to be the secretary of the Vukovar SUP; correct? I showed
13 you the document earlier in your cross-examination where you signed off
14 on that?
15 A. Yes, I don't deny that Milakovic was appointed. I'm just not
16 sure that I was prime minister at the time. I was
17 prime minister-designate or something. Government did not exist yet at
18 that time.
19 MR. STRINGER: If we could please have tab 1135 which is
20 Exhibit P118.111.1. So that's the public redacted version.
21 And before we move on with this, Mr. President, I did want to
22 tender the last exhibit, the Mandaric order, 65 ter 1D107, into evidence.
23 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic.
24 MR. ZIVANOVIC: I would object because the witness didn't know
25 anything about this document and about the subject and content of this
Page 10512
1 document. And there is no foundation for -- for it.
2 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Stringer.
3 MR. STRINGER: Well, Mr. President, it appears to us that
4 there's -- there's no question as the authenticity of the document. It
5 goes to the credibility of the witness. He has minimised the role and
6 the authority of General Mandic -- Mandaric at this point in time and we
7 think that the authority and the powers he is exercising as shown in the
8 document are -- are relevant, going from impeachment purposes to his
9 evidence on this.
10 JUDGE DELVOIE: Yes, Mr. Zivanovic.
11 MR. ZIVANOVIC: The witness did not -- did not speak about --
12 about the time and -- about the time when this document was created.
13 And, in addition, in the introduction of this very document you can see
14 that it was issued on the basis of the order of the 1st Military District
15 of the Command of 1st Military District, and it is something that -- I
16 don't believe it could be used for impeachment of Mr. Hadzic.
17 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Stringer, can we hear you on the -- the time
18 when the document was issued, the date?
19 MR. STRINGER: The date is, I think, the third week of September.
20 So it is two weeks -- sorry, two months after the time of the accused's
21 meeting. This is September 28th of 1991, the meeting having occurred --
22 I believe the evidence was that it was the day before the Kostic visit to
23 Borovo Selo, which was the 29th, a day or two before the 29th of July.
24 So it's two months.
25 JUDGE DELVOIE: The objection is overruled. The document is
Page 10513
1 admitted and marked.
2 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, 1D107 will be Exhibit P3227.
3 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
4 MR. STRINGER:
5 Q. Mr. Hadzic, now we're looking at the document on the screen,
6 P118.111. This document has been shown to you during an earlier part of
7 your direct examination, I believe. I think you've seen it on a few
8 occasions throughout the trial. This relates to the incident at the Dalj
9 police station on the 21st of September, 1991, in which you came and then
10 left with two gentlemen who had been prisoners there at the police
11 station.
12 Do you recall that incident?
13 A. I recall it perfectly.
14 Q. And in your direct evidence on the 10th of July, beginning at
15 page 9660, 9656, I should say, you described -- gave your version of this
16 incident starting with your having been in Ilok when someone approached
17 you and made a reference to or inquired by Mr. Luka Sutalo which then led
18 to your going down to Dalj.
19 Do you recall that?
20 A. I remember all the details of what happened, but either I got
21 some misinterpretation or you strayed away from the facts, but I never
22 said I was in Ilok.
23 Q. Sorry, if I said Ilok that was a misstatement from me. I meant
24 Erdut.
25 A. Erdut, yes, you are right.
Page 10514
1 Q. Now at page 9659 of your direct evidence, you were describing
2 about your car being parked in front of the entrance, 15 or 20 armed
3 soldiers ran out, and that you realised that these were Arkan's soldiers
4 with rifles on the ready and Arkan was walking there. He walked there
5 with some other people. He was swearing. He was walking towards the
6 door. The car was in front of the door. You said:
7 "First I thought he was swearing at me because I knew that
8 Luka Sutalo was a Croat, and I think he was swearing at me because I was
9 helping Croats."
10 Do you remember that testimony?
11 A. I remember, yes.
12 Q. And what that tells us is that you knew perfectly well on this
13 day, the 21st of September, in fact, you knew it perfectly well from the
14 weeks before, what his attitude was about Croats and Croat prisoners, in
15 particular; that is, he was someone who did not take prisoners and was
16 involved in brutal killings of prisoners even before this day.
17 A. Is that a question?
18 Q. That's a question, yes. Isn't it true? You knew his attitude
19 toward these Croat prisoners at the time you were there at the police
20 station.
21 A. I didn't know any of what you just said. In that moment when I
22 heard the curses and profanities, lots of things crossed my mind. I
23 thought he was angry with me. I thought it was because the person was a
24 Croat.
25 Q. You continue on:
Page 10515
1 "Now I'm not sure whether I got out of the car or whether I was
2 sitting in the car. I was in a kind of mild shock then because I did not
3 know what was in Arkan's mind, what he was thinking."
4 Mr. Hadzic, at that moment, what he was thinking was doing harm
5 to Croat prisoners at the Dalj police station, and you knew that. You
6 knew that those prisoners were in extreme risk with Arkan there with his
7 men and the agitated state that he was acting.
8 A. I did not receive an interpretation.
9 Q. I'll read if again. I said:
10 "Mr. Hadzic, at that moment, what he was thinking was doing harm
11 to the Croat prisoners at the Dalj police station, and you knew that."
12 I'll just stop right there.
13 Isn't that true? You knew what was on his mind?
14 A. I did not know and I don't know how I could have known. What I
15 saw was that he was angry at that policeman and that he was quarrelling
16 with him.
17 Q. Well, he wasn't there to serve food to the prisoners or to
18 release them, was he? You didn't see any evidence of that.
19 A. I don't understand.
20 Q. By this time, you had already seen -- had your first encounter
21 with Luka Sutalo. You knew that there were prisoners at this place that
22 you and Arkan were at. True?
23 A. Interesting question. But you have linked that now to when Arkan
24 and I were driving. When I came to that place, this policeman said that
25 Luka Sutalo was there. I knew that he was there, but he didn't want to
Page 10516
1 release him because he said it was not under his authority because it was
2 the army that brought him in and that he had nothing to do with that. I
3 went out then. I went towards the car. Actually, maybe I stayed on a
4 minute or two. I didn't really quarrel. I sort of argued with him.
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 MR. STRINGER: Could we go into private session briefly,
9 Mr. President.
10 JUDGE DELVOIE: Private session, please.
11 [Private session]
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 10517
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 [Open session]
13 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, we're back in open session.
14 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
15 MR. STRINGER:
16 Q. And so you knew as of mid-September that, in fact, there was
17 something going on with prisoners. People were being held there for
18 exchange. And you knew that even before then you came to Dalj on the
19 21st of September. I should say you came back to Dalj on the
20 21st of September, having been there on the 15th or 16th for this
21 meeting.
22 A. Well, I'll try to explain this now. I think it's going to be
23 clear. First of all, as for these prisoners I thought that the JNA had
24 already exchanged them in.
25 Secondly, when I was told that they were in the co-operative in
Page 10518
1 Dalj, when this lady said that to me in Erdut, I didn't even know that
2 that was the police station. I thought that they were in the
3 co-operative in Dalj. I could not link the two. I'm saying that in all
4 sincerity.
5 MR. STRINGER: And before we go on with this, if we could please
6 have tab 409, which is P133, page 4 of the English. And I believe it's
7 also page 4 of the B/C/S.
8 Q. This is a record regarding Luka Sutalo:
9 "We hereby enclose the record of the taking of a statement from
10 Luka Sutalo of Radnicka number 18 in Erdut regarding his wish to leave
11 Erdut of his own will."
12 You told us, Mr. Hadzic, that you drove Mr. Sutalo back to Erdut
13 and you had a nice cup of coffee in his house. Did you know that he was
14 one of the people then a few months later, in February, who left Erdut?
15 This is the next page, page 5 of the English.
16 According to this, he is leaving of his own free will.
17 A. I didn't know that. And I'm not sure whether it was of his own
18 free will or not. But I really didn't know anything about this.
19 Q. Well, I think on that we agree. It probably was not of his own
20 free will. He, like many of the other Croats in Erdut, in the entire
21 region, were leaving because they were being pressured and forced out.
22 Isn't that true? That's the real reason why he left.
23 A. I don't know. I really don't know that. And I am sorry if
24 somebody pressured him, but I heard of cases when Croats didn't want to
25 stay in places where there were many Serbs around them so that was
Page 10519
1 pressure enough to make people leave, but I really don't know about
2 Luka Sutalo, and I'm really sorry if anybody pressured him.
3 Q. And as we see here on page 5, he placed his house and all movable
4 and immovable property at the disposal of the local community in Erdut.
5 So what was happening is once these Croats were leaving under this
6 pressure, they were turning the keys to their house over to the local
7 authorities. Did you know that?
8 A. I didn't know how this procedure evolved and how this happened.
9 Q. Well, how do you think the local authorities were then in a
10 position to make houses like Luka Sutalo's house available to other Serbs
11 who were coming in from other places as we've discussed at length?
12 A. Well, we did -- we did talk about this, but nobody informed me
13 about this. I wasn't dealing with this. There was the regional council.
14 There were the local communes. I had already been elected president, so
15 I really didn't have this information.
16 Q. Even though this is mid-September -- well, let me just start that
17 again.
18 In mid-September, by this time, as I understand it, the SBWS
19 government had moved or was in the process of moving from Dalj up to
20 Erdut; is that correct?
21 A. Yes, I would agree that that was some time in mid-September.
22 Q. However, as you said, on the 10th of July, some people and you've
23 indicated elsewhere, a few people associated with the government remained
24 in Dalj, one of whom was the secretary who didn't have a car. He stayed
25 in Dalj and so that from time to time you would return to Dalj to sign
Page 10520
1 things and discuss the agenda for government meetings with him; is that
2 correct?
3 A. The interpretation I received says the 10th of July and I see
4 that that is what the transcript says as well. I cannot confirm the
5 date. I think it was something different though.
6 Q. That's my mistake. I'll clarify.
7 You testified on the 10th of July, last month, about this, and
8 what you said was that as you just indicated, I believe it was in the
9 middle of September when the government had already moved to Erdut. And
10 then you continued on in your direct testimony to say:
11 "But the secretary of the government had remained in Dalj.
12 Considering that he didn't have a car, I would occasionally travel there
13 to agree about the agenda. And once this witness, 003, came, I didn't
14 know who he was but I recognised his surname."
15 Do you remember that testimony?
16 A. Yes, I do. Perhaps it's important that I explain this for the
17 Trial Chamber. The secretary of the government stayed on. He didn't
18 have a car. That's true. He got a car later, but he stayed in Dalj
19 because there was no accommodation in Erdut. He could not set up an
20 office for himself there and that's why he used this area in Dalj.
21 Q. And you continued to use this office that you had had before,
22 that is, in the library building in Dalj. That's where you would work on
23 those occasions when you came back down to Dalj. True?
24 A. I didn't work there. I mean, even before that I wasn't there
25 often, but when I would stop in Dalj I would stop by and see the
Page 10521
1 secretary. Didn't do anything, in particular. Stayed there for about
2 half an hour, an hour the most, and it would happen once every ten days
3 or so.
4 Q. And it's -- this is why you were in Dalj, then, when you had this
5 meeting with GH-003; correct?
6 A. Well, I assume so. I assume that that would be the reason why I
7 stopped there.
8 Q. Is it your evidence, Mr. Hadzic, that -- because we've all been
9 to Dalj. It's not a big place. It's your evidence that even though
10 you're prime minister of the SBWS government, you didn't know there were
11 any prisoners in Dalj on these occasions when you returned in
12 September and beyond?
13 A. Well, I didn't know that. Now, your conclusion that Dalj is a
14 small place, I wouldn't agree with that. It is small compared to
15 Amsterdam or The Hague or New York, but compared to our villages down
16 there, it was one of the bigger places.
17 MR. STRINGER: Mr. President, we would need to go back into
18 private session for a moment.
19 JUDGE DELVOIE: Private session, please.
20 [Private session]
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 10522
1
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6
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10
11 Pages 10522-10523 redacted. Private session.
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18
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20
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Page 10524
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 [Open session]
4 MR. STRINGER:
5 Q. The encounter that you've just --
6 JUDGE DELVOIE: One moment.
7 MR. STRINGER: Oh, I apologise.
8 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, we're in open session.
9 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
10 MR. STRINGER:
11 Q. The encounter that you just described, that did occur in Dalj;
12 correct?
13 A. Yes, it was certainly in Dalj. I think it was in front of that
14 library.
15 Q. And it had to have been some time after the
16 21st of September, 1991, since it concerned someone who was involved in
17 that, Mr. Sutalo. True?
18 A. Yes, that's right.
19 Q. And so what this tells us then, Mr. Hadzic, is at least on two
20 occasions - mid-September and then again the meeting we've just discussed
21 here - you were present in Dalj and you discussed prisoners with two
22 officials who were based in Dalj. Can't we agree on that?
23 A. Roughly speaking, these were two completely different topics.
24 The first conversation took place before the 21st of September. It had
25 to do with the food for the persons who were supposed to be exchanged,
Page 10525
1 and the second conversation had to do with Luka Sutalo. And I was in
2 Dalj and both times that was in Dalj, and we can agree on that.
3 Q. Thank you.
4 MR. STRINGER: Could we please have tab 254, P112.111. I was
5 just checking to make sure it's public.
6 Q. Now we just had a report of this incident that occurred on the
7 21st of September, 1993 [sic]. By the way, before we move on,
8 Mr. Hadzic, after you left Dalj with Mr. Sutalo and also Mr. Palinkas, I
9 believe it was the gentleman you gave a lift to as well.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Did you ever follow up on what occurred at the police station
12 there with Arkan after you left? You say you left while he was still
13 there. Did you ever look into what might have happened after he had
14 left?
15 A. What do you mean? Who could I have asked in order to follow up?
16 Q. Could have asked anybody.
17 A. [In English] Okay. Okay. [Interpretation] Okay. Okay. I
18 understand the question. I said that Arkan stayed there. Arkan saw me
19 off and then he followed me to that transformer. I did not assume where
20 he was --
21 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: Mr. Hadzic is speaking too
22 fast for interpretation.
23 MR. STRINGER:
24 Q. They're asking if you can slow down a bit.
25 A. I did not know that Arkan went back to the duty policeman. I
Page 10526
1 didn't know that. I didn't say that. And I did not know that he stayed
2 back there at the police station. I left from him.
3 Q. P112.111 is a report from a few days later. Now this is the 4th
4 and 5th of October. And this relates to a different incident involving
5 prisoners at the Dalj police station. This one involving Arkan now and
6 also Milorad Stricevic.
7 Milorad Stricevic was also based in Dalj during the period that
8 your government was there and during the period that you had come to Dalj
9 to the office in the library; correct?
10 A. Well, he was in Dalj at least for 50 years before the government
11 got there because, as far as I heard, he was from Dalj.
12 Q. And what we see in this report is that Arkan arrives. Stricevic
13 is there with his people. They enter the police station and begin
14 conducting interviews. This is paragraph 3 of the document.
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. "The only thing that was heard during the processing were the
17 words, Come on you guardsmen and MUP guy. And occasionally sounds were
18 heard as if an object was being struck against a table, but no other
19 sounds were heard. At around 0400 hours they took three detainees who
20 then carried out 12 dead bodies from the room, loaded them into the
21 truck, and then together with those three men, drove off somewhere."
22 Mr. Hadzic, do you know if the bodies of these 12 or 15 men who
23 were removed from the police station are the bodies that floated up at
24 the park in Dalj on the banks of the Danube river?
25 A. I don't know that and I cannot testify about this because I
Page 10527
1 didn't know anything about it. I didn't even know when the investigator,
2 Mr. Dzuro, asked me about it. He was the first one who actually told me
3 about it.
4 Q. And so you were coming down to Dalj during this period. This is
5 early October. And yet you weren't hearing anything about this continued
6 practice of removing prisoners from the police station and killing them?
7 A. I didn't hear anything. I didn't even go to Dalj in October, at
8 least I don't remember it. Maybe I passed through Dalj. I talked to
9 Milakovic in the end of September or the 1st or the 2nd of October. But
10 after that, I was constantly in Belgrade. I really didn't hear about
11 this.
12 Q. You never heard about bodies washing up in the Danube and the
13 horror that that raised, caused, among all of the people who were living
14 in the area?
15 A. Nobody told me anything about it.
16 MR. STRINGER: Could we please have tab 830, 65 ter 2320.
17 Q. Mr. Hadzic, just a little bit of a detour. I want to take a look
18 at something you said in -- when you testified as a witness in the
19 Dokmanovic case. This is page 3098 of the transcript, 3098, at the
20 bottom beginning at line 20.
21 You were being asked about why you were wearing a uniform, why
22 you wore a uniform. And you said, line 22:
23 "And also, the other reason, because other people wore uniforms
24 and we had [sic] worn civilian clothes and we would have been different
25 from the other inhabitants in the area, so we would have caused
Page 10528
1 additional revolt because there was already some revolt toward certain
2 presidents, ministers, et cetera, as we can assume."
3 Do you remember a revolt, if I can put it that way, that occurred
4 in Dalj during the time we've just been discussing, October 1991?
5 A. That revolt was not mainly in Dalj. I mostly suffered from it in
6 Borovo Selo. That's what I remember. In Dalj, nobody complained to me
7 about it. This revolt was spread throughout the territory, throughout
8 the district.
9 Q. What's the period of time of this revolt that you're describing?
10 A. During the war, all those who were fighting men, who were
11 carrying arms, they always used every opportunity to say, We are fighting
12 and those who are in cushy arm chairs, and they are far from Erdut, far
13 from the war. And they considered themselves much more important than
14 people who were not combatants.
15 Q. Well, in fact, a good number of those people who were fighting
16 were actually horrified and disgusted by the sorts of things that were
17 being done to prisoners in Dalj during this very period of time. Isn't
18 that true? Do you remember members of the TO actually challenging Arkan,
19 government ministers, about what was happening, the crimes that were
20 taking place?
21 A. No. When we talk about Borovo Selo and the whole district, it
22 has nothing to do with it. When I came here only, I saw documents
23 relating to that protest in Dalj. But before that, I didn't know.
24 MR. STRINGER: Could we please have tab 286, P115.111. It's
25 confidential. Apologies.
Page 10529
1 [Prosecution counsel confer]
2 MR. STRINGER: I believe to be safe we should go into private
3 session, Mr. President.
4 JUDGE DELVOIE: Private session, please.
5 [Private session]
6 (redacted)
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Page 10530
1
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12
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Page 10531
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
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4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 [Open session]
8 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session, Your Honours.
9 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
10 [Prosecution counsel confer]
11 MR. STRINGER: I believe it's 1151, Mr. President. It's
12 P251.245.1.
13 Q. We're just talking about an incident that occurred on the
14 15th of October in Dalj. I'm going to put it to you, Mr. Hadzic, this is
15 your response. What you did the next day in a document that's -- bears
16 Dalj as the place of its making. This is the day you fired the secretary
17 of the Vukovar Secretariat of Interior. You don't deny that you signed
18 this document dismissing Mr. Milakovic, do you?
19 A. Of course I don't deny it.
20 Q. And you did it in Dalj. You signed this in Dalj. It was made by
21 Mr. Pejakovic in Dalj and that's where you signed it.
22 A. No, that was signed perhaps 15 days later. I don't know exactly.
23 Sometime later. And it was not signed in Dalj. Pejakovic was in Dalj.
24 He kept a record of all that was going on wherever he was. I think I
25 didn't even attend the session of the government that decided about this,
Page 10532
1 and the government session was in Erdut, not in Dalj.
2 Q. One question for private session, Mr. President, please.
3 JUDGE DELVOIE: Private session, please.
4 [Private session]
5 (redacted)
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7 (redacted)
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Page 10533
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18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 [Open session]
21 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session, Your Honours.
22 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
23 MR. STRINGER: If we could have tab 274, P113.1.
24 Q. Just round this off, Mr. Hadzic. This is from the same period.
25 This is another report concerning the activities of Mr. Raznjatovic based
Page 10534
1 in Erdut, paragraph 1, talking about removing 13 people from the prison
2 in Dalj, killing them.
3 Paragraph 3 regarding Milorad Stricevic.
4 And then I wanted to go to paragraph 4, which is page 2 of the
5 English, page 3 of the B/C/S. It's referring to someone named
6 Boro Berkovic, also known as Bosko Orlovic, a criminal from
7 Borovo Naselje. There's a reference here to Boro Milinkovic, minister
8 for religions, having offered him a concern amount of money to kill our
9 source.
10 Is this the same Mr. Milinkovic who was a member of your
11 government, I believe though as minister for culture?
12 A. For culture and religious affairs.
13 Q. All right. Do you know anything about this?
14 A. I can tell you what I know, not first-hand but I can explain what
15 has been said here.
16 I know that Boro Milinkovic did not even have ten Deutschemark in
17 the house at the time. He couldn't feed his wife and children. He was a
18 pacifist, so much that he never had a violent quarrel with anyone in his
19 life. He was a musician. He was only receiving money. He would never
20 give a cent out of his own pocket to anyone. So I believe it is some
21 sort of paranoia that talks through this person. If it could be anyone
22 other than Boro Milinkovic we could give it some credence. But
23 Boro Milinkovic is really the last person who would do this. And he is
24 not from Borovo Naselje, this man, but from Dalj. So this is just wrong,
25 frivolous information on the part of this person who made this statement.
Page 10535
1 It's pure gossip.
2 MR. STRINGER: Could we please have tab 289, Exhibit P104.
3 Q. This is a document, Mr. Hadzic, of the security organ of the
4 1st Military District of the JNA, submitted to the Federal Secretariat
5 for National Defence. And it's again reporting on these unauthorised
6 killings of arrested ZNG, that is, the national guard members. We're not
7 going to go into detail. We've been talking about this already, the
8 activities of Mr. Raznjatovic, Arkan, and the special police in Dalj
9 commanded by Stricevic.
10 Top of page 2, it refers to four dead bodies that were found
11 somewhere between Vera village and Marinovci farm, probably killed by
12 Arkan and his men after they had taken over the prisoners of the village
13 of Tenja police at the intervention of Veljko Cizmic, the command of the
14 Dalj police force. The dead bodies were buried by the local prison
15 inmates.
16 Continuing the next paragraph:
17 "Milorad Stricevic, a self-proclaimed colonel commanding the
18 special police with the assistance of Arkan, is in charge of arrest,
19 questionings and pronouncing judgements."
20 It continues on:
21 "It is not a rare incident that some individuals die during the
22 questioning as a result of being beaten and physically assaulted."
23 And then it continues on, a reference to questioning and
24 threatening to kill Stjepan Pap:
25 "According to the source, after the organs," this is the last
Page 10536
1 paragraph:
2 "According to the source, after the organs of the new government
3 have been established in Dalj, various cases, a large number of arrested
4 people were killed and their dead bodies were thrown into the Danube.
5 Some of these bodies turn up near the park in Dalj on a daily basis."
6 Mr. Hadzic, let's me ask you again: You're president of the
7 government. You're the leading civilian official in the SBWS. You're
8 based in Erdut nearby. You knew what was happening in Dalj. You knew
9 the chaos that reigned there. True? You did nothing about it. True?
10 A. That's not true. You just said that I was the chief civilian
11 officer, and I can't believe that you are not well-informed. I know that
12 you are. We were in the process of being established as a government and
13 we had no powers. And I see that Mile Babic signed this. I know by
14 chance who Mile Babic is. I didn't know him. He was one of the first
15 deputies of Aco Vasiljevic and one of the favourite witnesses of this
16 Prosecution team and the OTP in general, and I think the right person to
17 ask was Mr. Vasiljevic because he had information half an hour after it
18 was written in 1991. As far as I'm concerned, I didn't have that
19 information, and it's obviously a wrong address. I don't know why it was
20 made that way, but it's certainly not in the interests of justice or
21 truth.
22 Q. Okay. So this is part of the big JNA conspiracy to frame you and
23 people of your government for the crimes that were happening down there.
24 Is that -- is that what you're telling us? They're making up these
25 stories just to make you and your people look bad?
Page 10537
1 A. No, no, no. You are twisting things on purpose. That's not what
2 I was trying to say. This service tried to accuse us of the crimes in
3 Ovcara. I'm just saying that I know who should have had this
4 information, unlike me. And they are not accusing me of this as they did
5 for Ovcara. So your conclusion is completely wrong.
6 Q. Well, they had good information, didn't they? I mean, what is
7 being reported in here is correct. We know that now, don't we?
8 A. Now both you and I know it. But I'm surprised that you want
9 somebody to answer for it now if they didn't even know about it at the
10 time. And you are not accusing the person who knew about it and had the
11 information. People who had one thousand or maybe 500 or 600 military
12 policemen who were available there to arrest somebody, and they didn't do
13 it.
14 MR. STRINGER: Mr. President, this would be a good time to break.
15 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you, Mr. Stringer.
16 Court adjourned.
17 --- Recess taken at 10.30 a.m.
18 --- On resuming at 11.01 a.m.
19 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic.
20 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Thank you, Mr. President.
21 I would just respond to the submission of Mr. Stringer as to the
22 cross-examination and line of cross-examination of GH-015.
23 [Defence counsel confer]
24 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Maybe we should go to -- move to the closed -- to
25 the private session, sorry.
Page 10538
1 JUDGE DELVOIE: Private session, please.
2 [Private session]
3 (redacted)
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24 [Open session]
25 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session, Your Honours.
Page 10539
1 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
2 Mr. Stringer.
3 MR. STRINGER: Thank you, Mr. President.
4 Q. Before we go ahead, Mr. Hadzic, I'd like to take you back to
5 something that you said earlier in the last session. I'm looking at
6 page 28 of today's transcript, line 16. I suggested that you signed the
7 document dismissing the secretary of the Vukovar Secretariat of Interior,
8 that you did that on the 16th, just the day after the incident that we
9 talked about in Dalj involving the people who challenged Arkan and
10 ministers of the government.
11 So I suggested to you that you signed the document dismissing the
12 secretary of the Vukovar SUP on the 16th and that you did it in Dalj, and
13 you said:
14 "No, that was signed perhaps 15 days later. I don't know
15 exactly. Sometime later. And it was not signed in Dalj."
16 On the issue of when you signed the document, I'd like, if we
17 could, please, to go to Exhibit D14 which is under seal, Mr. President,
18 and we should go into private session, I believe.
19 JUDGE DELVOIE: Private session, please.
20 [Private session]
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 10540
1
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11 Pages 10540-10541 redacted. Private session.
12
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Page 10542
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8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 [Open session]
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Can I answer now? Was this a
15 question or was this your testimony?
16 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, we're in open session.
17 MR. STRINGER:
18 Q. Right. What I did, Mr. Hadzic, was just to remind you of your
19 evidence on this point. That is, the point of whether there was a goal
20 or an objective of unifying the SAO SBWS and the SAO Krajina. And as I
21 mentioned your evidence on that, your testimony on that, was that nobody
22 was talking about that until the end of 1991 when Babic was talking about
23 it. Do you recall that testimony?
24 A. I don't recall having testified about that. That's just what I
25 wanted to say, everything that you read out just now so I don't have to
Page 10543
1 repeat it. I first heard that from Raskovic, that Babic talked about
2 that. And when I asked Babic, Babic said Raskovic is fantasising. He
3 probably invented that when he went to the toilet.
4 Q. And what you said -- and this is page 9571 of the transcript in
5 this case. What you said, as you've just indicated:
6 "First of all, I heard from Professor Raskovic about the
7 possibility of merging the two areas. This was towards the end of 1991."
8 Is that correct?
9 A. Yes, yes.
10 Q. Is it possible that, in fact, this is an issue that was being
11 discussed and was quite topical during October of 1991, during the time
12 of these events that we've been discussing already this morning?
13 A. Not possible. I still think that this was political suicide,
14 this unification, and I first heard about that from Raskovic.
15 MR. STRINGER: Could we have, please, tab 1684, Exhibit D136.
16 Actually, this is under seal, Mr. President. Need to go into
17 private session.
18 JUDGE DELVOIE: Private session, please.
19 [Private session]
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 10544
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Page 10545
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25 [Open session]
Page 10546
1 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session, Your Honours.
2 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
3 MR. STRINGER:
4 Q. This is from the 25th of October, 1991, Mr. Hadzic from a
5 publication called "Nin": Hours of decision.
6 JUDGE DELVOIE: Can we have the tab number, please, Mr. Stringer.
7 MR. STRINGER: Yes, Mr. President. We'll provide that. 1759.
8 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
9 MR. STRINGER:
10 Q. This is an article regarding Yugoslavia in The Hague, so this
11 would appear to be referring to the discussions that we just discussed --
12 the negotiations we discussed a moment ago. And I want to skip down to
13 the section that begins with the heading: Serbian Bosnia. That's
14 towards the bottom of page 2 in English.
15 And then there's the bold section that says:
16 "Without too much legal and political sugar coating, the essence
17 is clear. For Serbia the ... dismantling of Yugoslavia is unacceptable
18 without a permanent solution to the problem of Serbs outside of their
19 proper republic."
20 Do you see that?
21 A. I see that.
22 Q. And then just going to the text below that, about the fifth line
23 down, it says:
24 "The leadership of the Krajina SDS recently articulated two other
25 options: Unification of SAO Krajina with the Bosnian Krajina; or SAO
Page 10547
1 Krajina as part of the Republic of Serbia irrespective of its
2 exterritoriality."
3 And it goes on:
4 "The very mention of Bosnian Krajina in this context and the
5 broaching of this topic at the meeting last week in The Hague of
6 Milan Babic and Goran Hadzic" --
7 JUDGE DELVOIE: Sorry. Yes, Mr. Zivanovic.
8 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Your Honours, I would like to -- to provide the
9 witness this document because it is added to the list of the Prosecution
10 during the summer recess, and he had no opportunity to -- to read it in
11 its entirety.
12 MR. STRINGER: I think that the documents on our
13 cross-examination list aren't documents that Mr. Hadzic has been
14 reviewing in advance of his testimony anyway, Mr. President. But I'm
15 happy to provide him with a hard copy of it. Could I suggest that we do
16 this because I'm mindful of the time. I could give Mr. Hadzic my copy
17 and perhaps at the next break he could read the whole thing. I could ask
18 the limited question, I think I have just one more about the document, we
19 can move on, and then if they felt they needed to come back to it after
20 the break, they could do that, rather than us sitting here and having him
21 reading the whole thing because it's a bit lengthy.
22 JUDGE DELVOIE: If there is no objection from the Defence we can
23 proceed that way. Mr. Zivanovic.
24 MR. ZIVANOVIC: I believe it would be good to provide Mr. Hadzic
25 with this document and he could read it during the break and answer all
Page 10548
1 the questions after that.
2 JUDGE DELVOIE: That seems a more logical way of proceeding,
3 Mr. Stringer. So if it is only one or two questions you want to put to
4 the witness, perhaps it would be better to do that after the break. Do
5 you agree?
6 MR. STRINGER: That's fine, Mr. President. Yes.
7 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
8 MR. STRINGER:
9 Q. Mr. Hadzic, perhaps what I'll do is just come back to this issue
10 in its entirety after the break after you have had a chance to read that.
11 For the time being, we'll move on to another topic. And this is about
12 your evidence on the SBWS and RSK judiciary. During your direct
13 examination, you were shown a lot of the court records, documents,
14 indictments, judgements. I think most of those coming from
15 Beli Manastir. Do you remember that?
16 A. I remember, yes. It was in Beli Manastir. That's where our main
17 court was.
18 MR. STRINGER: And, Mr. President, just for the record, because
19 there is a pending motion that seeks to change the -- during the course
20 of Mr. Hadzic's direct examination, 29 of those Beli Manastir records
21 were admitted into evidence, and subsequently the Prosecution tendered a
22 motion asking that the status of those be changed back to MFI because our
23 submission was that we did not have English translations of the B/C/S
24 text for those. And so just -- I'm prepared to go ahead and work with
25 the documents, but we just wanted to flag that there is a pending issue
Page 10549
1 regarding the status of these, and the Prosecution is still not in
2 possession of full English translations of the B/C/S versions that are in
3 evidence. So it's just to note that.
4 JUDGE DELVOIE: Yes, Mr. Zivanovic.
5 MR. ZIVANOVIC: I would just like to say that all these documents
6 are translated. Just the statements of reasons from these documents
7 were -- have not been translated. For example, one judgement has the
8 sentence conviction sentence, et cetera, et cetera, but not the statement
9 of reason because who -- who is -- who said what, who -- who of the
10 witnesses were -- was heard, and et cetera et cetera. But now we
11 submitted these parts for translation too, these parts of the documents.
12 JUDGE DELVOIE: Okay. So you're waiting for --
13 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Yeah --
14 JUDGE DELVOIE: -- translation of these parts?
15 MR. ZIVANOVIC: -- translation of --
16 JUDGE DELVOIE: Okay.
17 MR. ZIVANOVIC: -- this part of document.
18 JUDGE DELVOIE: Okay. Noted.
19 MR. STRINGER: And that's not going to hold us back now,
20 Mr. President, but I just wanted to note it for the record and to
21 indicate that we're not waiving the motion by going forward with the
22 cross-examination.
23 JUDGE DELVOIE: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Stringer.
24 MR. STRINGER:
25 Q. And, Mr. Hadzic, what we've also got, I'm going to refer to it
Page 10550
1 and we may ask you to refer to it as well, this is the chart that you had
2 at hand when you testified about this, and out in the right-hand column
3 you had your comments that you had written in regard to the cases. And
4 if necessary we can come back to this.
5 But on our discussion now what I'm going to do is just focus on
6 the 29 cases that you talked about that were admitted into evidence by
7 the Trial Chamber because there are more cases on your chart but not all
8 of those are in evidence, so I'm going to limit this to the 29 that are.
9 And with that, I want to first suggest to you that out of those
10 29, only two of the crimes involved -- only two of the cases involved
11 crimes that were committed in 1991. And I'm just going to suggest to you
12 that all the others involved crimes committed after 1991.
13 Now, I don't intend to go through all of those with you but I am
14 just going to put that case to you, and I'm going to then ask you a
15 couple of questions about one of those cases that occurred that is based
16 on crimes that occurred in 1991. And that's Exhibit D148, which is
17 tab 1738.
18 Mr. Hadzic, you testified during your direct examination about
19 this case. This relates to the murder of a person named Laslo Varga and
20 the accused in that case is named Nikola Djula [sic].
21 And what we can see from the court record here in the
22 indictment -- the questions I wanted to ask you are, first of all, the
23 victim here, Mr. Laslo Vargo, from the name that would indicate that he
24 is a Hungarian person. Would that have been his ethnicity, as far as you
25 can tell?
Page 10551
1 A. Yes, he was a Hungarian.
2 Q. And then the accused here, Nikola Djula, I believe you indicated
3 in your chart that he was a Romanian; is that right?
4 A. He was an Orthodox Christian Hungarian. Nikola Dula. Not Djula,
5 but Dula, and he had a brother called Petar. I knew them both from
6 before the war.
7 Q. What was interesting about this is that as we see in the
8 indictment, Mr. Dula pointed a loaded and cocked automatic rifle at the
9 victim, Laslo Varga, whom he had previously disarmed in front of his
10 house in Brsadin. And then a military police control -- patrol arrived.
11 Two gentlemen, Milan Radic and looks like Djordje Popovic arrived at the
12 scene to intervene, and then the accused issued a serious threat holding
13 his rifle in the same position and told them not to approach. And it was
14 at that point then that he fired his weapon at Mr. Varga and killed him.
15 So in this case, the murder actually took place in front of two
16 Serbian military police who had themselves been threatened by the
17 accused. Isn't that true?
18 A. I don't know anything about that incident from that time. I know
19 as much as you do from what is written here. I can only say that it's,
20 indeed, written here. I don't know how it happened. I know these people
21 from before the war. I wasn't there when it happened.
22 Q. And this case, like perhaps all of the other 29 that you talked
23 about -- in this case, you don't have any idea whether this crime is
24 linked to the victim's ethnicity or whether it was a result of some other
25 personal dispute between these two men. You don't know that, do you?
Page 10552
1 A. How can I know that? Some crimes happened in places where I'd
2 never been. I can only tell by the name whether the people involved were
3 Serbs or Hungarians or Croats. I was never present at any crime scene or
4 crime when it happened or murder in my entire life.
5 Q. And so we don't know whether this crime or any of the other ones
6 were actually part of any sort of ethnic motivation to drive the victim
7 out of SBWS based on his ethnicity. It could be completely unrelated to
8 his ethnicity; right?
9 A. I can't say either yes or no.
10 Q. Now there were four other cases, Mr. Hadzic, that -- actually
11 only four of the 29, involved crimes that were committed during the first
12 few months of 1992 before the peacekeepers started coming. And as we
13 look at a couple of those, I'm going to suggest to you, and I'll probably
14 suggest it more than once, is that it was only when the UN peacekeepers
15 started arriving in April of 1992 that there was any really pressure on
16 the SBWS and its judicial authorities to try to tackle the ethnic crimes,
17 the expulsions, and other crimes linked to ethnicity that had been taking
18 place in your SBWS, you, as prime minister, going all the way back to
19 August, September of 1991; right? No good-faith effort to address any of
20 those crimes until the peacekeepers arrived and started pressuring your
21 people to look into those.
22 A. Of course that's not right. I don't think you are saying this
23 because you don't know what the situation was like really.
24 In 1991, it was all a combat zone, and it was all under military
25 rule. Military courts were supposed to do everything. We established
Page 10553
1 the government only in September, October, November, and only then did
2 the courts begin to work. And if you used this methodology that you're
3 using in my case, you are accusing me of things that happened in 1991.
4 You are accusing the institution. You, as a lawyer, know that things do
5 not start working immediately and that it takes time to prosecute, to try
6 and convict. You know how long it took to indict me and I am not yet
7 close to conviction, and I'm not guilty anyway.
8 Q. Maybe we misunderstand each other, Mr. Hadzic. I'm not asking
9 you about when cases happened. There's nothing that would have prevented
10 the judiciary from addressing crimes that happened in 1991 even if they
11 weren't able to do so until 1992, 1993, or even after. The crimes that
12 happened in 1991 occurred. The problem is that no one ever investigated
13 or prosecuted those at any time. Isn't that so?
14 A. I'm testifying here about the events where I participated and
15 which I remember. Some crimes happened when there was no judiciary at
16 all. I mean the judiciary of the future Republic of Serbian Krajina.
17 Crimes happened during the combat period, when it was all under the
18 jurisdiction of the judiciary and the courts of the
19 Yugoslav People's Army. In 1991 when some civilian authorities were
20 established, these crimes began to be prosecuted. There can be no
21 evidence against me because I never participated in the coverup of any
22 crime, nor did I incite anybody to cover them up, nor did I work for
23 somebody to be convicted or not convicted. It was never the subject of
24 any of my activities.
25 Q. Well, if you're suggesting that it was only the military that
Page 10554
1 could prosecute crimes that happened in 1991, I'd suggest that that is
2 absolutely undermined by your own exhibit, D148, in which the SBWS
3 judiciary and its district public prosecutor in Beli Manastir prosecuted
4 Mr. Nikola Dula for a crime he committed in 1991.
5 So they had the ability and the capacity later to prosecute
6 crimes that occurred in 1991 if they wanted to. The fact is they just
7 didn't want to. Isn't that true?
8 A. No, quite the contrary. They wanted to, but they were able to
9 prosecute only on the basis of a document produced by some judiciary
10 organ. They just couldn't do it without having a basis, a starting
11 point. I am a layperson, but all this happened in 1991 when this court
12 that prosecuted it didn't even exist. According to you, they were not
13 supposed to prosecute it at all. They did so as soon as they were able
14 to. In May 1992 no prosecutions and trials were possible. It was
15 supposed to be done by the army. Somebody had to try them.
16 MR. STRINGER: D146, please.
17 Q. Mr. Hadzic, this is one of the four cases that's based on crimes
18 that happened during the first part of 1992, prior to April of 1992.
19 D146 which is tab 1739. This person has been prosecuted for the crime of
20 manslaughter. But actually this person was acquitted. Do you see that?
21 A. I see only the names of the accused. I don't see the charges.
22 Yes, I see. I see.
23 Q. Paragraph 1.
24 A. Murder or manslaughter.
25 Q. And this first gentleman, Mr. Risto Buho, actually was never held
Page 10555
1 accountable because he was on the run in the Republic of South Africa at
2 least as of this time.
3 We go to page 2 of the English. We see the acquittal. And then
4 the judgement goes on -- and this one goes on with the statement of
5 reasons.
6 But one of the four cases actually was an acquittal; and one of
7 the people actually was tried in absentia.
8 D162, Mr. Hadzic, is tab 1726. In this one, the accused
9 Branko Pajevic is charged with rape. We see here he is acquitted.
10 A. Can I see this statement of reasons? I see only a couple of
11 lines of the statement of reasons. I can't see why he was acquitted.
12 But, anyway, I don't have anything to do with it. I didn't make this
13 verdict and I wasn't familiar with it.
14 Q. We'd all like to see the statement of reasons, but we don't have
15 that yet, Mr. Hadzic. It's coming. So we don't know why he was
16 acquitted.
17 And the next case, tab 1736, D166, this is one of the four other
18 cases that involved crimes committed prior to April 1992. This gentleman
19 was convicted because, according to what we see in this document, the
20 accused, Milan Sijuk -- this is the bottom paragraph of page 1:
21 "At around 1200 hours on February 16, 1992, he was walking past
22 the house number 42 ... and was addressed by the injured party,
23 Ankica Cucic who was standing in front of the house. Was addressed by
24 her with the offensive words that he was a Chetnik, a murderer and a
25 plunderer. Insults which had leveled at him on more than one occasion
Page 10556
1 previously since the JNA had arrived and liberated Berijak [phoen]. He
2 took from his shoulder a PAT semi-automatic riffle. Fired a single shot
3 in the direction of the injured party, Ankica Cucic, from a distance of
4 10 metres with the intention of killing her. Hit the injured party in
5 the chest, inflicting an entry/exit wound to the chest with serious and
6 life-threatening injury caused instantaneous death of the injured party,
7 Ankica Cucic."
8 And then if we continue to page 2, we see the disposition and the
9 sentence. For that crime, the accused Chetnik, Mr. Sijuk, was sentenced
10 to one year and six months of imprisonment. Now, are you comfortable
11 with the quality of justice in this case, Mr. Hadzic, as it appears in
12 this judgement?
13 A. I can't think anything about if. I'm not qualified to judge. I
14 mean, I have no words to answer this question.
15 Q. Well, just as a human being, do you think that's a fair sentence?
16 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic.
17 MR. ZIVANOVIC: I object to this question, Your Honour.
18 MR. STRINGER: I'll withdraw it, Mr. President.
19 Q. Now, as I just suggested a few minutes ago, Mr. Hadzic, by
20 April of 1992, then, representatives of the UN Protection Force,
21 UNPROFOR, started arriving in the region pursuant to the Vance Plan. And
22 as I've suggested to you, it was only then that -- when they began
23 exerting pressure on local authorities to pursue prosecutions based on
24 expulsion and ethnic violence, it was only then that we started to see a
25 little bit happen on the part of the local judicial system.
Page 10557
1 And so moving now to the period of time after, for crimes
2 committed after, we start to see UNPROFOR arriving. I'm going to suggest
3 to you that of the 29 cases that you looked at on your direct
4 examination, less than half of them, only 13 resulted in a trial
5 judgement at all, either an acquittal or a conviction. The remaining 16
6 cases you looked at never got past the indictment phase. So they were
7 never actually prosecuted.
8 MR. STRINGER: If we could please have tab 1727, Exhibit D160.
9 Q. Here's one, Mr. Hadzic, we see. It's a March of 1996 indictment,
10 so this is quite a long time after you've completed your tenure as
11 president of the RSK. But it is based upon an incident that happened
12 back during your time, which was the 9th of September, 1993. And
13 according to the indictment, what happened here is that the accused
14 threatening to kill the Majher family went home and took two
15 hand-grenades, threw one hand-grenade in the direction of the front door,
16 and then it goes on to talk about the impact of the explosion.
17 But, again, we don't know because we don't know how this turned
18 out, we have no idea whether this incident was based upon some ethnic
19 conflict or targeting of non-Serbs, or whether, in fact, there was
20 something else going on -- going on between these people that has really
21 nothing to do with the ethnic violence. Isn't that true? You don't
22 know.
23 A. It's evident that a Serb threw a hand-grenade at a Croat. Now
24 whether he was drunk or stoned or what the background was, I can't know.
25 It shows that all citizens were equal before the law, that such things
Page 10558
1 could not happen.
2 Q. Well, do you know why it took two and a half years to investigate
3 this crime before it could even be brought to indictment?
4 A. I see this record for the first time here. I wasn't involved in
5 these things, nor did anyone inform me. I don't want to ask you
6 counter-questions. I've already asked about my own case which took so
7 long to process. I have nothing to add.
8 Q. Well, since you've brought it up now twice, Mr. Hadzic, the fact
9 is that you were a fugitive. You ran away when you found out about the
10 indictment in this case in 2004, and you were gone for over seven years
11 until you were arrested at your hiding place in Serbia and brought here
12 in 2011, I think it was. Isn't that true?
13 A. Yes, that's true. It's a fact. But you are, again, confusing
14 things. I was indicted in 2004, 13 years later, and you are reproaching
15 me because somebody was indicted two and a half years later. Why don't
16 you use the same standard?
17 MR. STRINGER: Could we please have tab 1741, Exhibit D144.
18 Q. Mr. Hadzic, we're going to spend a couple of minutes talking
19 about this case file. This is the indictment in what I'll refer to as
20 the Tovarnik expulsion case. I think you -- you know about this one.
21 A. Yes, we discussed it.
22 Q. The indictment from the 21st of December, 1992. And then on
23 page 2 of the English, after identifying all of the accused, it refers to
24 an eviction in Tovarnik of Croats from Tovarnik on the 23rd and
25 24th of May, 1992.
Page 10559
1 And I believe you testified that this incident was brought to
2 your attention. You were aware of it back in 1992, during the time that
3 you were president of the Republic of Serbian Krajina; correct?
4 A. Yes, I remember. There was a meeting with the representatives of
5 the United Nations where it was mentioned.
6 Q. All right. And so this particular case was one in which the
7 internationals, those who came in with UNPROFOR, were exerting pressure
8 for there to be an investigation and a prosecution of this expulsion
9 incident. True?
10 A. That's not how I experienced it. All I heard was the information
11 they conveyed to me, and I promised I would check what it was all about.
12 There was no pressure.
13 Q. Well, you are aware, aren't you, that, in fact, it was UNPROFOR
14 that did the investigation in this case and actually turned its
15 investigation case file over to the local prosecution authorities in
16 order to get them to do something about it.
17 A. I'm not aware of that. I really don't know. I don't know if I
18 discussed it with them before the indictment was issued or after. I
19 think I discussed it with the UNPROFOR in 1992, but I see that these
20 people were prosecuted.
21 MR. STRINGER: Could we please have tab 1206, P2240-2168.
22 Q. Mr. Hadzic, this memorandum to Mr. Thornberry, who was director
23 of UNPROFOR, civilian affairs, refers to the Tovarnik expulsions incident
24 and here what we see is that suspects were nominated by the civilian
25 police of UNPROFOR and that "the completed file has been passed to the
Page 10560
1 competent prosecution office in Dalj. The persons interviewed have not
2 been detained."
3 Do you see that?
4 A. I see that.
5 Q. And it's my understanding, Mr. Hadzic, that by late 1991, I
6 believe in December or possibly even earlier in November, a district
7 prosecutor was established in Dalj, a prosecution office was established
8 in Dalj. I think it was a Mr. Trosic who was in charge of that; is that
9 correct?
10 A. Yes, it was Trosic. But I don't know with certainty what the
11 date was.
12 Q. And so what's indicated here is that the UNPROFOR people actually
13 turned their investigation file over to Mr. Trosic or to his people who
14 were based in Dalj.
15 A. Yes.
16 MR. STRINGER: Could we please have tab 1218, Exhibit P41.
17 Q. Here we see now it's July, 9th of July, 1992, Mr. Hadzic. This
18 is the memorandum, Nambiar to Goulding. We looked at it the other day
19 when I was asking you about that statement that you made about Serbs
20 remaining in the majority.
21 If we go to paragraph 9 of the document. Actually, paragraph 8
22 could start.
23 You're responding here to what had been raised in paragraph 7 of
24 the document in which you were confronted with the serious concerns
25 concerning violations, continuing violations of the Vance Plan,
Page 10561
1 restrictions on freedom of movement, unacceptable presence of a large
2 number of policemen who form part of various militia, and the continuing
3 incidents of expulsions and coercion against non-Serb, especially in
4 Sector East. And in paragraph 8, you respond by saying that you had
5 passed strict instructions for prosecution of all non-criminals who
6 indulge in expulsions of non-Serbs and qualify that he had passed
7 instructions yesterday that all actions against non-Serbs will be viewed
8 just as seriously as if they were against Serbs.
9 Now, on that statement, Mr. Hadzic, that's a reflection of what
10 the situation was, which was, you had a system which had different
11 priorities and that priority regarding crimes committed against non-Serbs
12 was just not there.
13 A. That is your conclusion and I believe that that is not true. I
14 don't know if this is a question of translation or whatever, but this is
15 a bit too harsh what it says here in paragraph 8, that I conveyed these
16 precise instructions. I did not have the authority, I mean, I had a
17 meeting with the persons who were in authority, and it was the position
18 of the government of Krajina and my own that non-Serbs should be
19 protected. That's how I behaved. That's what I really thought. I never
20 protected anyone, even if I could protect someone, who had committed a
21 crime. Not that I could have.
22 Q. In paragraph 9, then, Mr. Thornberry raised with you the matter
23 of expulsions in Tovarnik, asked for information on the action taken
24 against the 11 persons who had been identified. This is continuing on
25 the next page of the English:
Page 10562
1 "Hadzic responded that he did not have specific details but would
2 let us know after checking up. He mentioned that he visited the prison
3 in Beli Manastir just yesterday and was informed that approximately 50
4 out of the 60 inmates were those who had been imprisoned for various
5 offences against Serbs [sic]."
6 What, if anything, did you ever do, Mr. Hadzic, to follow up on
7 the Tovarnik matter, the Tovarnik expulsion case, as you'd promised here
8 that you would?
9 A. On the same day, I think it was the very same moment, I never
10 talked to Mr. Thornberry on my own. There was always somebody else who
11 was present there, sometimes even the minister of the judiciary. And I
12 asked what it was that going on there, and I asked for this to be checked
13 as I had promised. You must understand that these people who were the
14 injured party in Tovarnik they crossed over to Croatia and they submitted
15 these reports to the Croatian authorities and to UNPROFOR, not to our
16 organs. At the time when this happened, there was military
17 administration. It was the area of responsibility of the JNA so we could
18 not have had this information. As soon as we found out about this,
19 probably the procedure was initiated straight away. Charges were
20 brought, et cetera, et cetera. I cannot influence the judiciary in any
21 way.
22 MR. STRINGER: Could we please have tab 1261, P1381.1351.
23 Q. Now we're in October, Mr. Hadzic, more than three months since
24 your meeting with Mr. Thornberry, more than four months since the case
25 file has been turned over. And here we see an UNPROFOR brief about the
Page 10563
1 Tovarnik expulsions:
2 "Item 1: Position of the case. Nothing has been done by the
3 court so far. The prosecutor has been visited four times by CIVPOL and
4 civil affairs but he keeps on saying that the issue is not ready for the
5 prosecution and it may take up to six months of which already have
6 elapsed since the expulsions. It seems that they are buying time."
7 That's the conclusion of UNPROFOR, Mr. Hadzic, in its -- respect
8 of the Tovarnik expulsions case. And I'm going to put it to you, sir,
9 that the reason for the authorities wanting to buy time is that they had
10 other priorities. Prosecuting these sorts of crimes was not a big deal
11 for them, was it?
12 A. Well, I cannot agree with your statement. I am not knowledgeable
13 about prosecution procedures. You know better whether this takes three
14 days, six months, a year, 15 years. I really cannot comment on that. I
15 can just say that I did not exercise any influence whatsoever to slow
16 things down. On the contrary, I was in favour of having everybody
17 prosecuted generally. Individually, I did not know who was guilty and
18 who was not guilty.
19 MR. STRINGER: Could we have tab 1749, P3146.
20 Q. This is another UNPROFOR document, Mr. Hadzic. Subject is:
21 Monitoring of the working of the justice system dated 15 December 1992
22 from a B. Francis Negga from Sector East. And Francis Negga is referring
23 to a meeting with Mr. Urgsic, deputy presiding judge at Beli Manastir,
24 about the number of cases prosecuted. The meeting had been scheduled
25 with Mr. Dasic, presiding judge, who sent no executions or reason for his
Page 10564
1 non-appearance.
2 It goes on to say that Mr. Urgsic was extremely ill at ease
3 throughout. He refused to discuss individual cases, especially the
4 Tovarnik expulsions in the churches at Aljmas, Dalj, and Sarvas. And the
5 reference to the churches in Aljmas, Dalj, and Sarvas would be, can we
6 agree, a reference to the fact that these would have been Catholic
7 churches destroyed or severely damaged during the course of 1991 or 1992?
8 A. We can agree. I think it was in 1991 when the JNA was in that
9 area. But I'm not sure of the date, though, I'm sorry.
10 Q. And so here by mid-December 1992, we still haven't got action on
11 the Tovarnik expulsions case; correct? Nothing still had been done.
12 A. I don't know that.
13 MR. STRINGER: D163, please. No, I apologise. Not D163.
14 D144 ...
15 [Prosecution counsel confer]
16 MR. STRINGER: It's tab number 1741, Your Honour.
17 Q. So here we are, finally, on the 21st of December, 1992,
18 Mr. Hadzic. You saw this document on your direct examination, and this
19 is the indictment that was issued in the Tovarnik expulsions case. We
20 can go through a few more pages if you'd like.
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Okay. Let's just take a look at page 2, page 3. The only
23 question here, Mr. Hadzic, is whether we can agree that this is the
24 indictment that was eventually issued in the Tovarnik expulsions case. I
25 think you already said that on your direct examination. We can see at
Page 10565
1 the bottom of the page it refers to the incident on the 23rd and 24th of
2 May.
3 A. Yes. That means that this indictment was brought six or seven
4 months after that incident.
5 Q. Do you know, in fact, whether the case ever went to trial or
6 whether these people were ever convicted or acquitted, whether justice
7 was done in this case, either way?
8 A. Well, I don't know that, and it wasn't my job to follow the work
9 of the court in that way. It was for the court to say. I really cannot
10 say. I don't know.
11 MR. STRINGER: Mr. President, I see we've gone past the break
12 time.
13 JUDGE DELVOIE: Indeed. Thank you, Mr. Stringer. We'll take the
14 second break and be back in 30 minutes.
15 Court adjourned.
16 --- Recess taken at 12.17 p.m.
17 --- On resuming at 12.45 p.m.
18 JUDGE DELVOIE: Please proceed, Mr. Stringer.
19 MR. STRINGER: Thank you, Mr. President.
20 Q. Mr. Hadzic, before we continue with the discussion on the court
21 records, do you want to go back to talk about the -- the "Nin" article
22 that hopefully you had a chance to read during the break?
23 A. Yes. Thank you for making this possible for me.
24 Two things are clear here. What I said when Babic decided to
25 establish the Republic of Serbian Krajina, it is 100 per cent correct
Page 10566
1 that I did not have that information earlier on because the singular and
2 the plural are very clear in the Serbian. So the SAO Krajina is referred
3 to in The Hague, and there was no mention of Slavonia and Baranja when
4 unification was mentioned. So I already said unification meant the
5 SAO Krajina and the Bosnian Krajina.
6 As for this reference to Slavonia, Baranja, and Western Srem, it
7 is obvious here that is Radovan Karadzic who said that somewhere at some
8 meeting of the SDS for Bosnia and Herzegovina of course, and I was not a
9 member, or he said that to some journalist so it wasn't in the public. I
10 believe that this was not intentional on the part of the Prosecutor, but
11 it's probably an attempt to plant something but probably by mistake so I
12 was not in a position to know that.
13 MR. STRINGER: Could we please have L1.
14 [Prosecution counsel confer]
15 MR. STRINGER: Tab number 388. And if we can go to page 64 of
16 the English, page 22 of the B/C/S.
17 Q. This is the Great National Assembly, SBWS, conclusions at special
18 sessions in Beli Manastir 24 October, 1991. And we see here conclusion
19 number 1 is that the Great National Assembly endorses the SFRY Presidency
20 initial basis for solving the crisis.
21 Number 2 verifies the views presented by the delegation of the
22 Assembly and the government of the Serb District of SBWS at a
23 consultative meeting at the Yugoslav Presidency and then it refers to
24 others present, representatives of Republic of Serbia, Montenegro,
25 SAO Krajina.
Page 10567
1 A. Sorry I don't have this.
2 Q. This is in the conclusions, item 2. It should be page 22 of the
3 B/C/S. This is the Great National Assembly of SBWS reached the following
4 conclusions at its special session held in Beli Manastir.
5 A. It's all right now.
6 Q. Okay. Thank you. And then the second conclusion is the one I
7 was just reading from. It identifies the delegations that were at this
8 consultative meeting at the Yugoslav Presidency. And just to continue.
9 Republic of Serbia, Montenegro, SAO Krajina, SAO SBWS,
10 SAO Eastern Herzegovina, Serb peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, federal
11 organs, prominent individuals.
12 And then item 5:
13 "Adopts the declaration on union with SAO Krajina and
14 Bosnian Krajina and recommends that the governments of the united areas
15 as soon as possible initiate all activities necessary for reaching goals
16 mentioned in this declaration."
17 Now, Mr. Hadzic, we started this with the first document
18 regarding the discussions in The Hague. You and Babic were present on
19 the 17th of October, in which Babic lays out his options. We see a
20 reference to this issue, I submit, in the "Nin" article that we were just
21 looking at and now this is culminating a few days later on the
22 24th of October, 1991, and these conclusions of the Great National
23 Assembly. So how can you say that the issue of unifications of the
24 Serbian Districts is not something that came up until Raskovic mentioned
25 it in late 1991?
Page 10568
1 A. Well, we've moved a step ahead now. I clearly said that I first
2 heard from Professor Raskovic that Babic wanted to create the Republic of
3 the Serb Krajina. When I asked Babic whether that was true, he said it
4 was not. But, nevertheless, he did that ten days later.
5 As for unification, that was a constant topic and this was
6 constantly being discussed. So these are two things that I talked about.
7 MR. STRINGER: Could we go into private session briefly,
8 Mr. President.
9 JUDGE DELVOIE: Private session, please.
10 [Private session]
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 10569
1
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3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 Page 10569 redacted. Private session.
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
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22
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Page 10570
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 [Open session]
8 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session, Your Honours.
9 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
10 MR. STRINGER:
11 Q. Coming back, Mr. Hadzic, to the court records, Beli Manastir,
12 I've got a couple more of these judgements I'd like to show you. Because
13 of the 13 judgements that were among those 29 that you testified about,
14 we noticed that only two of those were actually judgements rendered while
15 you were president of the RSK. One of those is tab 1732, Exhibit D136.
16 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, for the record, the document is
17 under seal.
18 [Prosecution counsel confer]
19 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you, Madam Registrar.
20 MR. STRINGER: Oh I apologise. I didn't mean to say 136. I
21 meant to say 163. D163.
22 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
23 MR. STRINGER: Which is -- should be tab 1732.
24 Q. Mr. Hadzic, this is a judgement. Appears to be dated
25 17th of December, 1993. Court in Beli Manastir. Against these accused
Page 10571
1 Pavle Miskovic, Jozo Gligoric, and Zoran Miskovic. So this was tendered
2 as evidence of a functioning judicial system. Now if we -- we do have
3 some reasons here, and what we see on page 2 toward the bottom, page 2 of
4 the English, this is under the heading: Are hereby found guilty.
5 And then it continues referring to the first two accused in
6 concert. It appears, according to this, that what happened was on the
7 16th of June, it went to the house or the sheds owned by the injured
8 party, Mr. Mato Grlandinovic, and continues on. And essentially what
9 happened here is that they beat him up. They hit him in the head with a
10 big stone or a brick and that they did this in the course of committing a
11 robbery.
12 The question here is: Do you know whether, again, this is linked
13 to the ethnicity of these individuals or whether there was some other
14 motive behind this crime?
15 A. I only identified it as a crime against a Serb from this text,
16 and the text can give a description. It was a crime against a non-Serb;
17 namely, a Croat.
18 Q. Okay. And what we don't know is whether it's linked to the
19 ethnic violence that we've been hearing about in this trial or whether
20 there was some other motive for the crime. Can we agree with that? Can
21 you agree with me for that?
22 A. I agree, of course. I just wanted to say that the court was
23 working. I didn't want to go into how it was working, and I was not the
24 one deciding whether to issue an indictments or not.
25 Q. And here we see in that paragraph regarding the first two
Page 10572
1 accused, about four or five lines down, that this was done upon a
2 previous agreement and with the intention of appropriating cows for their
3 own gain.
4 And so it appears that this crime was committed again. This
5 gentleman was killed as part of an effort to steal his cows. Do you see
6 that?
7 A. I see that. That's not in dispute. I even tried to explain
8 yesterday or the day before yesterday that many crimes were motivated by
9 mercantile reasons. There were many thefts, robberies, lootings.
10 Q. And the next one of these is at tab 1733, Exhibit D165. And in
11 this case, this person Milorad Miskovic, was convicted of killing someone
12 named Katica Lazar. And on the bottom of the first page of the English,
13 under the heading of "Guilty," we can see that what happened is he
14 went -- the accused went to the house of Jovan Lazar intending to kill
15 him and there was fight inside the house and the weapon discharged and
16 then Katica Lazar was shot and killed.
17 Now, in this case, Mr. Hadzic, I'm interested in this accused,
18 Milorad Miskovic. I take it he's a Serb, as far as you can tell?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Because in the section on the judgement, second paragraph of the
21 document, it talks about his background. Says he is unemployed. Says he
22 has been sentenced or convicted by the district court in Osijek in 1988,
23 sentenced to two years of imprisonment in a facility for young offenders,
24 which he served in Glina. And then looks like he was convicted by the
25 district court in Beli Manastir for the criminal offence of rape. That
Page 10573
1 appears to have been in July 1992 and he was sentenced to two years in
2 prison for that. But somehow he was out on the day of this crime, the
3 8th of May, 1993. So it doesn't appear he was serving his rape sentence
4 on this day, the 8th of May, 1993, when he committed the third offence
5 here, which is to kill Katica Lazar. I take it you don't know why
6 Mr. Miskovic was out of custody and not serving his prison sentence for
7 the previous rape that he did -- that he'd committed?
8 A. I can only suppose concerning some people who were convicted
9 before the war. The law in Croatia, if the sentence was up to four
10 years, they could defend themselves from liberty. They could answer the
11 case from liberty. So he could have been released if his sentence was
12 less than four years, or maybe he was awaiting the result of appeal
13 proceedings, and that's why he was not in prison at the time.
14 Q. Okay. Well, as a non-lawyer, that sounds like a very plausible
15 explanation of the reason why he might have been out of custody.
16 I'd like to shift gears a little bit but we're going to stay
17 still on this topic, Mr. Hadzic, to look at tab 1745, Exhibit 1D00843.
18 And, admittedly, the original language version of this document,
19 the quality is not good, Mr. Hadzic. I can give you my hard copy if it
20 will help you look at it, although my copy is not a whole lot better.
21 Are you able to read that?
22 A. I can. If you read in English and I hear the interpretation,
23 then I can follow.
24 Q. This is a document of the district public prosecutor's office in
25 Vukovar based temporarily in Dalj. Do you see that up in the heading,
Page 10574
1 the top left-hand corner?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. 10th of December, 1991. It's to the government of the SO,
4 Serbian District of SBWS. And then moving to the bottom, this appears
5 over the signature of a Milorad Trosic. Do you see that?
6 A. I see that.
7 Q. And this is the Mr. -- this is the gentleman, Mr. Trosic, that
8 we've talked about once or twice already who went to Dalj to begin the
9 process of organising a district prosecutor's office, if I can put it
10 that way; is that correct?
11 A. Well, yes.
12 Q. And so here he is based in Dalj on the 10th of December, 1991,
13 and what he says in this letter to the government is that the public
14 prosecutor's organisation started working effectively at the beginning of
15 November 1991:
16 "Presently, it is mostly working on identifying and prosecuting
17 Ustasha criminals, the protection of property, primarily in Vukovar, but
18 also in the entire district."
19 He goes on to say:
20 "As our work is not static and tied to one location in order to
21 carry it out successfully, we need to have at our disposal a certain
22 number of vehicles ..."
23 Moving down, he is asking for fuel, saying that they, so far,
24 have had to use their own private vehicles.
25 Then he also says that it's a dangerous job, and he's asking that
Page 10575
1 they be allocated some pistols. Are you able to read that?
2 A. I am.
3 Q. But, Mr. Hadzic, the primary interest to us or to me is that the
4 sentence at the beginning where he indicates that the priorities are --
5 well, it is mostly working on identifying and process accusing Ustasha
6 criminals, protection of property, primarily in Vukovar.
7 I put this to you when we were talking about Tovarnik and some of
8 the other cases, and I'll put it to you again the fact is that
9 prosecuting crimes of expulsion, prosecuting people responsible for
10 expelling non-Serbs, terrorising them, was not a priority of the SBWS
11 prosecution system from the very beginning. Isn't that true? Isn't that
12 what Mr. Trosic is telling us here?
13 A. I don't know how you understood this, but I'm not sure Mr. Trosic
14 even knew at the time what had happened here. From my experience, he
15 couldn't possibly know, but he was a prosecutor; therefore, independent
16 from the government. But, anyway, he didn't even have the preconditions
17 to do his job properly, although he was independent.
18 Q. Well, we can agree can't we that, based on what he says here, he
19 is working mostly on identifying and prosecuting Ustasha criminals, among
20 other things. Do you see that?
21 A. Yes, I see it clearly and you've read it to me.
22 Q. Do you know whether he spent any time trying to investigate any
23 of the crimes, the murders that occurred right there in Dalj that were
24 districted against the prisoners that we were talking about from
25 September and October, just a couple of months earlier?
Page 10576
1 A. How could I know that if I told before I wasn't aware of any of
2 it? I heard about this incident of the 4th of October from the
3 investigator Dzuro in 2001.
4 MR. STRINGER: Your Honour, we tender this document,
5 65 ter 1D00843.
6 JUDGE DELVOIE: Admitted and marked.
7 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours that would be Exhibit P3228.
8 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
9 MR. STRINGER: The next exhibit is tab 1746, which is
10 Exhibit D1006.
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's on page 71, line 15, something
12 is incorrect. I heard it in 2002, not 2001.
13 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, can counsel repeat the number,
14 please.
15 MR. STRINGER: Yes. It is tab 1746, 1D1006. So that's a 65 ter
16 number.
17 Q. Okay, Mr. Hadzic, for you, this version is slightly more legible.
18 This is another document from Mr. Trosic, district public prosecutor's
19 office, temporarily based in Dalj. This is the 16th of December now.
20 And here he is requesting -- this is a question to conduct an
21 investigation, an investigative action. This is against the accused
22 Mato Vucik from Borovo Naselje and his information is on the morning of
23 the 16th of October, group of ZNG, this person Vucik took away the
24 victims like Onulic, Petar Grubisic from their houses and on an
25 undetermined day killed them by firing several shots from a Kalashnikov.
Page 10577
1 By doing so, he committed a crime against international law and humanity,
2 genocide, as described and publishable under Article 141, SFRY code. And
3 then skipping down to item number 1 at the bottom, he is asking or
4 recommending an exhumation of the body of the late Rajko Nulic buried at
5 Ilok town cemetery.
6 So what we're seeing here, Mr. Hadzic, is Mr. Trosic actually
7 carrying out one of the priorities he sets out in the previous document;
8 that is, to investigate crimes, Ustasha crimes, such as the incident
9 that's referred to in this document. Would you agree with me there?
10 A. I don't agree with you. I don't know anything about this case.
11 But, again, I can give you a logical explanation.
12 Considering that the majority of the Croats were on the other
13 side, they could tell the UNPROFOR about the Serb crimes, and we were
14 telling the UNPROFOR about crimes against Serbs, about Croat crimes. And
15 it took time when things got -- until things got levelled out --
16 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness slow down, please.
17 MR. STRINGER:
18 Q. Mr. Hadzic, they're asking if you could slow down. And you can
19 continue, but I -- I -- I would ask that you focus on what I just put to
20 you which is to ask whether it appears, in fact, that Trosic here is
21 carrying out the priority he'd identified in the previous document,
22 investigating crimes of Ustashas. This is a ZNG crime; right?
23 A. That crime was committed by Croats against Serbs. I don't even
24 know for sure who that man is who perpetrated the crime. What you are
25 trying to say is not important. I'm just telling you why we had more
Page 10578
1 information at that time about crimes against Serbs, whereas on the
2 Croatian side it was exactly the opposite, and I was trying to explain
3 this to the Trial Chamber. It's only logical because the Serbs were
4 talking about Croat crimes and the same happened on the Croatian side
5 where people testified to crimes against Croats. And when the UNPROFOR
6 arrived, things got a bit levelled out and crimes began to be prosecuted.
7 Q. You looked at those 29 cases from the Beli Manastir court on your
8 direct examination. I don't recall seeing that any of them involved
9 allegations of crimes against humanity or genocide. Were those sorts of
10 allegations just reserved for crimes committed by Croats against Serbs?
11 A. Your Honours, this is really not a question that should be put to
12 me.
13 As far as the gravity of crimes is concerned, I am really not the
14 right person to ask. I don't know anything about it. To me, a crime is
15 a crime. I know that genocide is an attempt to exterminate a people but
16 all the rest, the levels of degrees of crimes, I'm not qualified to
17 answer.
18 Q. Let me ask it to you this way then. Of the 29 cases that you
19 looked at on your direct examination, do you remember whether any of
20 those cases involved allegations of crime against humanity or genocide?
21 A. As far as I remember, not a single one. But I have to note
22 something that I noticed while listening to witnesses. You are now
23 talking about cases that have been tried in Beli Manastir, and now we are
24 discussing the opinion of the Prosecution. One man who was a judge in
25 Vukovar and who testified here said that the prosecution would always
Page 10579
1 proceed with the most serious possible charge and then it would be
2 established that it has to be toned down, that things were not exactly
3 the same way.
4 Q. Actually, the 29 cases that you looked at consisted of
5 indictments, as well as judgements. I'm just asking whether any of those
6 involved crime against humanity or genocide. I think your answer is no;
7 correct?
8 MR. ZIVANOVIC: That's asked and answered.
9 JUDGE DELVOIE: I agree, Mr. Zivanovic.
10 MR. STRINGER:
11 Q. Moving down to item number 1 at the bottom, the exhumation -- he
12 is requesting exhumation of the body of the late Rajko Nulic.
13 Now, earlier in your testimony, Mr. Hadzic, you talked a lot
14 about military rule, especially in Western Srem and Ilok area. At
15 page 9914 to 9915 of the transcript, you said:
16 "To the best of my knowledge, all crimes that were detected were
17 prosecuted. In this case it is interesting that the crime was committed
18 toward the end of 1991 and it's already in the beginning of 1992 when the
19 judiciary began to operate. It was prosecuted."
20 And by the way, you were not looking at this document, you were
21 looking at something else.
22 But you were asked again by your counsel:
23 "You mean the investigation was completed in this cas before this
24 indictment was issues."
25 And your answer:
Page 10580
1 "That's what I conclude from the dates before it was difficult
2 because the courts were only in the process of being established. The
3 military rule prevailed until the spring of 1992."
4 Now, I think we agree to disagree on that point, but evidently
5 Mr. Trosic thinks that he has the competence to investigate or that he
6 has the competence to conduct investigations in Western Srem. He wants
7 here to go down to Ilok and to exhume this body. Do you see that?
8 A. I've looked at the English translation here because I didn't see
9 the two last lines in Serbian, and I see that the wife of late
10 Rajko Nulic is from Trpinja and this man is also from Trpinja, so this
11 may have been one of the first cases to come to his attention.
12 Q. My question was whether you would agree with me that it appears
13 Prosecutor Trosic here does have the ability to conduct investigations in
14 Western Srem. It wasn't a matter of exclusive military rule or military
15 jurisdiction. True?
16 A. I could not agree with you. From my experience in Western Srem,
17 where it was not possible to move around freely during the military
18 administration, I'm not sure that Trosic was able to do these things
19 (redacted)
20 MR. STRINGER: Mr. President, we would tender this into evidence,
21 D1006.
22 JUDGE DELVOIE: Admitted and marked.
23 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, 1D1006 will be Exhibit P3229.
24 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
25 MR. STRINGER: Tab 1747, please, Exhibit 1D00939.
Page 10581
1 Q. This is the 9th of December, Mr. Hadzic. This is from a deputy
2 public prosecutor, Mr. -- or Ms., perhaps, Branislava Matic. And this is
3 saying that pursuant to the Law on Criminal Procedure, it's necessary to
4 urgently conduct interviews with all the employees of the Vukovar
5 Hospital who were working in it during the Ustasha occupation especially
6 about the following: Did patients have their organs removed or
7 experiments conducted with the AIDS virus and the killing of
8 Tomo Jakovljevic.
9 Do you know whether these issues were also priorities of the
10 public prosecutor's office, Mr. Hadzic?
11 A. I don't know anything about it or any other questions. Because
12 the prosecutor's office was completely independent of me and of the
13 government.
14 Q. So -- but this would be appear to be "a priority of the office
15 here expressing the need to urgently conduct interviews with all
16 employees of the Vukovar Hospital."
17 Do you see that?
18 A. Well, I see the same thing as you do, but I really have no other
19 information. I see it for the first time.
20 Q. Do you know Branislava Matic?
21 A. By pure chance, I know her name, but I didn't know that she was
22 the deputy municipal prosecutor. All I know is that she read law before
23 the war. And I was surprised to see her name because I really didn't
24 know that she was deputy prosecutor.
25 Q. Do you know whether, in fact, any investigation along these lines
Page 10582
1 was conducted by the public prosecutor's office?
2 A. For the third time in one minute, I don't know.
3 Q. Actually, I think my prior question was whether you knew that
4 this was a priority, so the last question was slightly different. But if
5 you don't know whether anything was done along these line, I accept that.
6 MR. STRINGER: Could we please have tab 420, which is
7 Exhibit P2918.
8 Q. Mr. Hadzic, while that's coming up, on this issue of
9 Vukovar Hospital and the things that were said to have happened inside
10 the hospital prior to the fall of Vukovar, experiments and organs being
11 removed, there were stories about that that were circulating throughout
12 the press in that period, weren't -- aren't there?
13 A. Well, there were different stories in the media. However, I was
14 very cautious about these stories. Based on the experience I had, not
15 everything was correct, either on the Croatian is side or on the Serb
16 side there was a lot of exaggeration.
17 Q. Now in this document that we see on the screen, P2918, if we
18 could please go to page 18 of the English text, and I was quite sure I
19 had a reference to the B/C/S. Apologies, I don't have that. In the
20 English text what we're looking for is item number 6: Significant
21 information. Thank you.
22 Item (a) relates to a case of the slaughter of children of
23 Serbian ethnicity in the kindergarten in Borovo. It sayings there are no
24 indications to confirm this report. We'll come back to this later,
25 Mr. Hadzic. Perhaps we should indicate what this document is. This is a
Page 10583
1 1st Military District Command document of 20 February 1992. It's a
2 report on clearing up the battle-field and restoring Vukovar and other
3 endangered sectors. And so that's what this report is doing. It's
4 reporting on various things that were being done in the post-conflict
5 area around Vukovar.
6 And under this item 6, number (b) relates to the case of the
7 burning of bodies in the incinerator of Vukovar Hospital and transplants
8 of body parts, and the conclusion here is that this was shown to be
9 completely unfounded. The report was the product of certain organs of
10 the SAO Krajina, certain physicians from Vukovar Hospital, and part of
11 the local unobjective press.
12 And then moving to the next paragraph which is top of page 19 of
13 the English. This misinformation stem from unqualified person and
14 incorrect political fabrications which cause immense harm to the
15 reputation of the country as a whole. In order to bring out the true
16 state of affairs, the president of the commission recommends that a
17 criminal report be filed against the SAO of Krajina minister of health,
18 Mr. Mladen Jovic and the director of Vukovar Hospital,
19 Major Branislav Kardasevic.
20 Now the references here to SAO Krajina, Mr. Hadzic, I'm going to
21 submit are actually references to SAO SBWS. Would you agree with me
22 there?
23 A. Yes, I would agree with you there.
24 Q. And Mr. Mladen Jovic, did he hold a position in the government of
25 the SBWS?
Page 10584
1 A. Yes, he was minister of health, as it was known.
2 Q. Thank you.
3 A. I also know who Major Kardasevic was.
4 Q. I don't -- well, go ahead.
5 A. If you're interested, Major Kardasevic was the military director
6 of the hospital appointed by the military administration. He's from
7 Belgrade or Novi Sad. He is not from the local area. He was a JNA
8 officer.
9 Q. So what we see in this document, Mr. Hadzic, is that the
10 conclusion of this commission was that, in fact, these reports and
11 allegations about these sort of things happening in the Vukovar Hospital,
12 taking of body parts, et cetera, this was all something that was
13 fabricated and advanced by a member of your own government?
14 A. Well, I don't agree with you on that. This was not launched by
15 the members of the government. These were rumours that appeared in
16 Vukovar and I see here that this Major Kardasevic was accused of that
17 because he was director of the hospital and the members of the government
18 were checking that there, whether that was correct or not. However, if
19 you remember when your witness testified, Vesna Bosanac, my lawyer said
20 that in a TV programme in Belgrade I refuted that and I said that that
21 was not correct, specifically about the culpability of Vesna Bosanac. I
22 said -- although she was accused in the Serbian public of having done
23 terrible things, I said that that was not true.
24 I apologise. May I just say something about the kindergarten and
25 the children?
Page 10585
1 Q. We'll come to it --
2 A. That is something that -- I beg your pardon. Sorry.
3 Q. We'll come to it. Maybe not today; probably tomorrow.
4 MR. STRINGER: Could we please have tab -- sorry. Tab 1748,
5 1D1086.
6 Q. Mr. Hadzic, at page 9900 of the transcript, you said during your
7 direct, and you said it more today, that you never interfered with the
8 work of the judiciary. Do you recognise this document? Petition for the
9 release of our comrade and friend, Slobodan Jurisic?
10 A. Is there a date somewhere? So could that please be shown a bit
11 further above.
12 Q. That's what I was going to ask you. Doesn't appear to have a
13 date on it, as far as I can tell. Before we talk about the day in the
14 document, do you recognise your signature on it, about the fifth one
15 down, sixth one down in the left-hand column?
16 A. I don't remember that document. I'm not sure whether it is or
17 isn't my signature.
18 Q. Do you remember this case? Do you remember --
19 A. I remember the case of Slobodan Jurisic, yes.
20 Q. He was convicted of crimes and this was a petition urging that he
21 be released. Do you recall that incident?
22 A. I don't remember the petition, but I remember that he was accused
23 of serious crimes in Vukovar after the arrival of the Serb forces.
24 Q. And you're saying that you did not sign a petition urging that he
25 be released from jail?
Page 10586
1 A. I'm saying that I don't remember having signed it.
2 MR. STRINGER: Could we please have tab 1710, Exhibit
3 65 ter 02802.
4 Q. Mr. Hadzic, we're going to start talking now about the events at
5 Velepromet on the 20th of November, 1991.
6 This image, Mr. Hadzic, you've seen it a few times, I think,
7 during the course of the trial. Can you tell us if you recognise it?
8 A. Well, I think -- well, actually, I recognise this. It is the
9 storage area of Velepromet from Vukovar.
10 Q. And there's been a lot of evidence about a meeting that occurred
11 at Velepromet on the 20th of November, 1991. I wanted to ask you if you
12 would take a pen, with the assistance of the Registrar, and just indicate
13 the location of -- actually, two things.
14 We're going to look at -- in a minute, we're going to look at the
15 video footage, and you've seen it a number of times, there's video
16 footage of you standing outside at Velepromet with other people,
17 uniformed people, some people not in uniforms, and I wanted to ask you if
18 you could put a number 1, if you see it, in the approximate location of
19 where you're standing in that footage. And if you need to see the
20 footage again we can run it, but maybe you know already.
21 A. Well, it would be easier for me to see the video footage first.
22 Because it's not very clear to me because I was there only once.
23 Q. Okay.
24 MR. STRINGER: That would be tab 996, which is P1971.
25 [Prosecution counsel confer]
Page 10587
1 MR. STRINGER: And there's no interpretation. There's no words.
2 It's just the images, so ...
3 [Video-clip played]
4 MR. STRINGER:
5 Q. Does that assist you at all, Mr. Hadzic, help you remember what
6 part of Velepromet you were standing there?
7 A. Well, I can try, because all the buildings are the same. I'm
8 going to draw where it could be. I think it's here; I'm not sure.
9 Q. Could you put a number 1 inside the circle.
10 A. [Marks]
11 Q. And now there's been a lot of evidence about the meeting that
12 occurred on that day. There was a room. There were desks -- there was a
13 desk. There were chairs. Can you indicate with a circle and a number 2
14 where, to the best of your knowledge, the meeting happened?
15 A. I'm not 100 per cent sure now. I think that that building was on
16 the side, in relation to this one. So it might be this one here, but I'm
17 not sure.
18 Q. Just -- I want to just make sure you're oriented in respect of
19 the photograph.
20 When you entered Velepromet, the complex itself, what direction,
21 can you indicate -- well, first of all, I guess, to finish. Can you put
22 a number 2 by the circle that you just made.
23 A. [Marks]
24 Q. Okay. Can you indicate with a circle and a number 3 where you
25 actually entered the Velepromet complex when you arrived.
Page 10588
1 A. I think that the gate is here.
2 Q. So then your recollection is that the meeting occurred farther
3 down toward the opposite end?
4 A. Well, that's what I think. Now is it where I marked it, or is it
5 this building that is next to it? I'm not sure. But I know that there
6 was a letter L when I walked out. I don't know whether I walked out of
7 here, or maybe the one down here, and then this closed part was behind my
8 back. I don't know. I cannot remember.
9 Q. I'd like now just to play that video again and I'm going to stop
10 it a couple of times just to ask you to identify a few people for us,
11 Mr. Hadzic.
12 [Video-clip played]
13 MR. STRINGER:
14 Q. We missed him. A man walked by -- at the beginning just in the
15 foreground there. Had a beard. Do you know who that is?
16 A. Yes, that is Rade Leskovac. Not that one, the one before him.
17 MR. STRINGER: If we could just go back and try to stop on the
18 bearded man in the foreground.
19 [Video-clip played]
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's it.
21 MR. STRINGER:
22 Q. Okay. Time code there is 6 minutes, 24.
23 And he, at this time, Mr. Hadzic, was an assistant minister of
24 information for the SBWS government?
25 A. Well, I don't know whether he was assistant minister or deputy
Page 10589
1 minister. And the minister was Ilija Petrovic.
2 Q. Thank you.
3 MR. STRINGER: We can continue.
4 [Video-clip played]
5 MR. STRINGER:
6 Q. Okay. And now, here, we see you with Arkan. And I don't wish to
7 engage in the, extended disagreement again that we had before the summer
8 recess about whether you came to Velepromet with Arkan but I do need to
9 come back to it for a moment.
10 First of all, Arkan -- we're going to talk about the meeting.
11 But Arkan was one of the people who actually attended the meeting itself;
12 correct?
13 A. He was inside, but he was not an official participant in the
14 meeting, but I think that he was inside while I was there, briefly.
15 Q. And before the summer recess, you recall I put it to you and we
16 looked at your earlier statements about whether Arkan actually
17 accompanied you as security on your trip to Velepromet.
18 Do you remember that?
19 A. I recall that.
20 Q. And is it still your claim today that he did not accompany you,
21 that it was your two other security men who came with you to Velepromet?
22 A. Yes. In the car with me was Milenko Japundzic, the driver. I
23 was sitting in front, and Ljubo Mudrinic and Dr. Sava Stupar were behind
24 me.
25 MR. STRINGER: Mr. President, I just need to point out that we
Page 10590
1 have an agreed fact, number 60, which, in our view, resolves this issue
2 and that, in fact, Arkan did come to Velepromet with Mr. Hadzic. It's
3 agreed fact number 50 [sic], and the citation or the support for it is
4 the page from his Dokmanovic evidence which we put to him on cross, so I
5 don't whether we need to -- I don't wish to take more time to go back to
6 it, but I think for the record we do wish to put it out there, which I
7 did not do before, that there is an agreed fact, in our view.
8 JUDGE DELVOIE: It's on the record now, Mr. Stringer.
9 MR. STRINGER: If we could continue with the video now.
10 [Video-clip played]
11 MR. STRINGER:
12 Q. Do you recognise this person, Mr. Hadzic?
13 A. This is a soldier of Arkan's. Cope was his nickname. I don't
14 know what his name is.
15 Q. What was his nickname?
16 A. Cope. I saw this imagery when the cooks from Erdut testified and
17 they referred to that nickname too. I didn't know his real name.
18 Actually, I don't remember.
19 Q. And the time code for that would be 7 minutes, 8 seconds. Okay.
20 [Video-clip played]
21 MR. STRINGER:
22 Q. We're seeing Mr. Jaksic there, Mr. Hadzic; is that correct?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And he's -- he's given evidence.
25 A. Yes, that is Dusan Jaksic.
Page 10591
1 [Video-clip played]
2 MR. STRINGER: Just before we break for the day, Mr. President,
3 I'd like to go to one more video of this that we can finish before we
4 continue tomorrow. This is tab 995, P210.140. And, again, no
5 transcript; no interpretation is needed.
6 [Video-clip played]
7 MR. STRINGER:
8 Q. It's hard to see it when it's still, but the gentleman standing
9 next to Arkan on his right, on the left of the screen, do you know who
10 that is?
11 A. The one on the left? Totally to the left? I don't know. I
12 cannot see now. I cannot recognise him. If you can play the video and
13 then I will try to focus on that, because now it's very blurred.
14 [Video-clip played]
15 MR. STRINGER:
16 Q. Were you able to recognise that person?
17 A. No, no, I didn't recognise that person.
18 Q. Earlier in this, did you recognise a person known as
19 Milorad Stricevic?
20 A. No.
21 [Video-clip played]
22 MR. STRINGER:
23 Q. And this gentleman wearing the glasses, the dark glasses?
24 A. That is the gentleman who is from -- I think from Jagodina, from
25 Serbia. I think he was president of the municipality there. I think his
Page 10592
1 first name was Jovan. He knew Slavko Dokmanovic. They were friends.
2 They were presidents of municipalities, and Jagodina and Vukovar were
3 sister towns, sister municipalities, so that's how they how that each
4 other.
5 [Video-clip played]
6 MR. STRINGER: We can end it there for the day, Mr. President.
7 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
8 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
9 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you, Madam Registrar.
10 The Registrar tells me that the picture marked by Mr. Hadzic has
11 not been tendered and we will lose it if we stop here.
12 MR. STRINGER: Thank you. I appreciate that. Yes, we do tender
13 that picture with Mr. Hadzic's markings.
14 JUDGE DELVOIE: Admitted and marked.
15 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, the picture marked will be
16 Exhibit P3230.
17 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
18 Mr. Stringer, planning purposes. What is --
19 MR. STRINGER: I believe I've got about four hours, maybe just
20 slightly more than four hours left, of the 32.
21 JUDGE DELVOIE: That's a little bit optimistic. I think you have
22 less than three hours left.
23 MR. STRINGER: I know that the Registrar told me I had eight
24 hours at the end of the day Tuesday. I had an e-mail so ...
25 JUDGE DELVOIE: Okay --
Page 10593
1 MR. STRINGER: In any event --
2 JUDGE DELVOIE: We'll check it for tomorrow morning. But, in any
3 event, as you say --
4 MR. STRINGER: I am expecting to -- well, first of all, I'm not
5 expecting to ask for more time, and so if our 32 hours ends tomorrow,
6 then it ends tomorrow. If it carries over slightly into Monday, I do
7 expect to use the full time.
8 JUDGE DELVOIE: Okay. I -- I see where the difference is. I
9 thought - and that's not the information coming from the Registrar - I
10 thought that you had 30 hours. So I have to check whether you have,
11 indeed, 32, as you say.
12 That means-- by all means, that means that we won't have the next
13 witness on Monday. I suppose, Mr. Zivanovic, that you will take some
14 time for your re-direct.
15 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Yes. I planned almost two days.
16 JUDGE DELVOIE: Two days.
17 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Yes, correct.
18 JUDGE DELVOIE: Okay. That would take almost the entire next
19 week. Okay. We think it over and come back to it and see what we have
20 to do with the planning for the next -- for the next witness.
21 If that's all, court adjourned.
22 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.03 p.m.,
23 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 28th day of
24 August, 2014, at 9.00 a.m.
25