1. 1 Wednesday, 15th September, 1999

    2 [Open session]

    3 --- Upon commencing at 2.11 p.m.

    4 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Please take

    5 your seats. Will you have the accused brought in,

    6 please.

    7 [The accused entered court]

    8 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] First of all,

    9 I'd like to say good afternoon to the interpreters and

    10 the Prosecution and the Defence, and to hear the news

    11 from Mr. Greaves and your computer, whether it is

    12 functioning properly. Is everything in order?

    13 MR. GREAVES: I'm afraid I spent part of the

    14 early afternoon trying to destroy some of the equipment

    15 of the Tribunal. It's my fault entirely; a momentary

    16 lapse of concentration. I'm sorry I caused you any

    17 delay.

    18 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] I would just

    19 like to tell you that when you find a mistake in the

    20 transcript, to check your equipment as well, please.

    21 Thank you.

    22 Mr. Nice?

    23 MR. NICE: The next witness is Mustafa

    24 Ramic. I trust you have his summaries. He seeks no

    25 order of protection. May he be brought in, please.



  2. 1 [The witness entered court]

    2 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Mr. Ramic, can

    3 you hear me? You can hear me. Very well. You are now

    4 going to remind us of your name and surname and your

    5 date and place of birth.

    6 There are no protection measures. You can

    7 tell us your name, your surname, your place and date of

    8 birth, please, to begin with.

    9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] My name is

    10 Mustafa Ramic. I was born on the 6th of February,

    11 1942, in Brcko. At present I reside in Sarajevo. By

    12 profession I am a machine engineer, graduated from

    13 university, and I am employed.

    14 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] That will be

    15 enough for the time being. Would you take the oath,

    16 please, according to the formula that the usher will

    17 hand you.

    18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly

    19 declare that I will speak the truth, the whole truth,

    20 and nothing but the truth.

    21 WITNESS: MUSTAFA RAMIC

    22 [Witness answered through interpreter]

    23 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Thank you,

    24 Mr. Ramic. You can sit down now. You have accepted to

    25 come to the Tribunal and appear in this present hearing



  3. 1 in front of the International Tribunal, and it is the

    2 Prosecutor against Mr. Goran Jelisic, who is to your

    3 left, between the two U.N. guards.

    4 We wanted to tell you that you were, first of

    5 all, going to hear questions put to you by the

    6 Prosecution, and we'll then have questions from the

    7 Defence. Then, of course, the Judges will decide

    8 whether or not to ask you any additional questions.

    9 I should like to tell you that you can feel

    10 very calm. You will sitting in front of Judges. It is

    11 always difficult, I know. If you need any break or a

    12 pause in the proceedings, please ask for it, and you

    13 will see that everything will evolve in the best

    14 possible terms.

    15 Mr. Nice is the representative of the

    16 Prosecution, and I give the floor to the Prosecutor.

    17 Examined by Mr. Nice:

    18 Q. Mr. Ramic, were you born and did you live

    19 most of your life before the war in Brcko? Indeed, was

    20 your brother to become the president of the Brcko SDA

    21 shortly before the war, and were you heavily involved

    22 in the formation of that political party, and indeed

    23 did you become mayor of Brcko in the 1990 election?

    24 A. Yes. Everything that you have said is

    25 correct.



  4. 1 Q. Before we turn to matters of detail with

    2 which you can assist the Tribunal, I'm going to ask you

    3 to help them with three maps, if the usher would be so

    4 good.

    5 MR. NICE: The order I'm going to present

    6 them is the small one first, the green one second, and

    7 the town map third. The small one, therefore, becomes

    8 exhibit number --

    9 THE REGISTRAR: 56.

    10 MR. NICE: If a copy of that can go on the

    11 ELMO, as this is a public hearing.

    12 Q. Does this map show the division of

    13 Bosnia-Herzegovina as between the Federation of Bosnia

    14 and Herzegovina and the Republic of Srpska?

    15 A. Yes, it does.

    16 Q. Does it show the position of Brcko at an

    17 extremely narrow part of what is the Republika Srpska,

    18 linking the eastern to the western parts of that body?

    19 A. Yes. That's right.

    20 Q. The significance of that area of land on

    21 which Brcko fell being obvious, for it's the only

    22 connecting point between the eastern and the western

    23 parts?

    24 A. Yes. That's right.

    25 MR. NICE: The second map, please, will be



  5. 1 the green map, which, I imagine, becomes Exhibit 57.

    2 MR. GREAVES: Your Honour, the Defence

    3 doesn't have any copies of these items.

    4 MR. NICE: I'm so sorry. I've provided

    5 enough copies for the registrar to distribute them. By

    6 being efficient in that way, I'd overlooked the Defence

    7 interest. I apologise.

    8 Q. This map shows Brcko, and it's a little hard

    9 to see on the displays but -- thank you very much.

    10 It's towards the right of what is on the screen.

    11 First of all, we can see, can we not --

    12 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

    13 MR. NICE:

    14 Q. First of all, we can see, Mr. Ramic, that

    15 Brcko lies on the south of the River Sava. Is that

    16 correct?

    17 A. That's correct.

    18 Q. And that the River Sava itself marks the

    19 border between what and what at this part of the land?

    20 A. Marks the border between Bosnia-Herzegovina

    21 and the neighbouring state of Croatia.

    22 MR. NICE: If the technical staff would be

    23 good enough to come back just a little further from the

    24 part of the map that they've highlighted. Thank you.

    25 Q. Can we see Bjeljina -- a bit further still,



  6. 1 please. Thank you -- now in the bottom right-hand

    2 corner of the map. Above that can we see Batkovic?

    3 A. Yes, you can.

    4 Q. Other places that may have been referred to

    5 in the evidence can always be identified later.

    6 MR. NICE: May the witness have the next map,

    7 please, will become Exhibit 58. It has with it a key.

    8 The map is a little large for the ELMO, but

    9 for the purposes of the public, if the witness could

    10 have the pointer; although the Chamber may find it more

    11 convenient to follow it with the key on the original

    12 copies of the maps they have.

    13 Q. Can we see, Mr. Ramic, on this map, towards

    14 the north-west, marked number 1, the hospital, with the

    15 health centre on the opposite side of the road and the

    16 wooden mosque next door to it?

    17 A. Yes. That's right.

    18 Q. Following that road round, are there three

    19 more mosques, 4 and 5, and I myself can't -- and then

    20 6, the middle of the point on the west. Four and 5,

    21 and then 6 down there is another mosque.

    22 Going back towards the top of the map is

    23 number 7, the SUP building, in the centre of town. The

    24 nearness or otherwise of the SUP building from the Luka

    25 warehouse facility can be seen on the map.



  7. 1 Could you just point out Luka facility to us,

    2 please? The Chamber, I think, knows where it is.

    3 A. [Indicates]

    4 Q. That's it. It's the black buildings lining

    5 the side of the River Sava.

    6 Number 8 is the Partizan Sports Hall,

    7 number 9 the JNA barracks. Then if we come down

    8 further on the map, on the roads running south -- and

    9 there are two roads running south -- if you take the

    10 road that runs almost due south, it goes to a place

    11 marked 10, and was that the Laser Bus Company?

    12 A. Yes. That's right.

    13 Q. If you take the road that runs, I suppose,

    14 south/south-east, does that road come to somewhere

    15 marked 12, and then beyond that to somewhere marked

    16 11? Can you see the markings 12 and 11?

    17 A. I pointed to them. This is 11 and that's 12

    18 [indicates].

    19 Q. Now, although you may not have been back

    20 after the war at any time when you could see where mass

    21 grave sites were found, is it your understanding -- and

    22 there will be further evidence of this to assist the

    23 Chamber, but is it your understanding that 12 is the

    24 approximate area of the mass grave sites?

    25 A. Yes, that's that.



  8. 1 Q. And Number 11 is some farms.

    2 A. Farms, yes. Those are the farms there.

    3 Q. Thank you. I'll now turn to the detail of

    4 your evidence. Before I do so, have you seen a summary

    5 of your evidence? Have you seen a summary of your

    6 evidence, which is now being produced to you?

    7 A. I've got it, yes, I've seen it.

    8 Q. And subject to amendments that were made when

    9 you were first here in The Hague, is that document

    10 correct?

    11 A. Yes, it's correct.

    12 Q. In 1990, did you and your brother attend the

    13 first official meeting of the SDA in Sarajevo, becoming

    14 party members and campaigning strongly during that

    15 period of time in the Brcko municipality?

    16 A. Yes, that's correct.

    17 Q. Were your aims to include -- or were your

    18 aims to ensure democratic representation for Bosniaks,

    19 they being the majority ethnic group at that time?

    20 A. That's right, yes.

    21 Q. In paragraph 3 of your summary, a number of

    22 statistics are set out. Were they provided by you, or

    23 alternatively provided to you and checked by you some

    24 time ago?

    25 A. I provided these figures, and they are



  9. 1 absolutely correct and common knowledge.

    2 Q. The various statistics will not help to be

    3 read out, but if it comes to this, that when combining

    4 the Bosniak portion of the population with Yugoslavs,

    5 or people identified as Yugoslavs but also Bosniaks,

    6 was the proportion of Bosniaks as defined in that way

    7 something in the region of 53 per cent?

    8 A. Yes, that's right.

    9 Q. The proportion of people simply declared as

    10 Bosniaks being approximately 44 per cent?

    11 A. 44? I think ,5 per cent, 44,5 per cent,

    12 exactly.

    13 Q. You, with your brother, formed bodies called

    14 the municipal board and the executive board of the SDA,

    15 and people were elected to those bodies from local

    16 boards within the municipality, but there were also

    17 party members who hold no office; is that correct?

    18 A. That's correct.

    19 Q. And to paragraph 5: There were some 20 to 23

    20 local boards in and around the municipality of Brcko,

    21 each having its own officers elected by local members?

    22 A. That is correct, yes.

    23 Q. You set out in paragraph 6 and 7 certain

    24 other details of the boards, which I needn't trouble

    25 you with at the moment, and we come to paragraph 8. At



  10. 1 the time of the election in 1990, did the municipal

    2 parliament of Brcko consist of 90 seats, and did each

    3 contesting party put forward 90 nominations?

    4 A. Yes, that's right.

    5 MR. NICE: I now produce a compendious

    6 exhibit which comes in a plastic folder and will, I

    7 think, become compendiously Exhibit 59?

    8 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Prosecution Exhibit 59.

    9 MR. NICE: And if we keep the pages in the

    10 same order, we'll be able to run through them quite

    11 swiftly, and I hope efficiently.

    12 Q. The first page of Exhibit 59 is marked "A" in

    13 the top right-hand corner and is a list of 90 names.

    14 What are these names, please, Mr. Ramic?

    15 A. It is a list of 90 candidates which the SDA

    16 party put forward for the general elections in 1990.

    17 Q. We see that you have highlighted numbers 6,

    18 16, 23, 29, and 60, the significance of the highlights

    19 being ... ?

    20 A. Those were individuals who, in my opinion,

    21 are not living today. They were killed in the war.

    22 Q. Thank you. Following that election in 1990,

    23 did the SDP or Communist Party win the majority of the

    24 seats; namely, 24: the SDA coming second with 23, the

    25 HDZ gaining 21 seats, and the SDS winning but 14 seats?



  11. 1 A. Quite correct, yes.

    2 Q. If you turn to the second document, or second

    3 part of the overall document, headed "B" in the top

    4 right-hand corner and running to three sheets, I think,

    5 is this a list of the names with the party affiliations

    6 of those elected to the municipal parliament? And we

    7 can simply see the distribution of -- if we look in the

    8 brackets, SDP, Bosniak, Serb, Croat, Serb, Bosniak, and

    9 so on.

    10 A. Yes, that is it.

    11 Q. And then that list goes over for various --

    12 well, it goes over for the three pages, but what I was

    13 reading out on the first part was those who were under

    14 the banner of the SDP, and they are of various ethnic

    15 groupings. When you come to the bottom of the first

    16 sheet and to the SDA, they are, of course, all

    17 Bosniak. When you come to the second sheet, the HDZ,

    18 they were all Croats. And when you come to the third

    19 sheet, to the SDS, they are all Serbs. And you've made

    20 then reference to the "Reformisti" coalition with some

    21 six names, and just explain that for us, please.

    22 A. That's how it was. SDP, the Communist Party,

    23 won 24 seats in the election, and this is the list of

    24 those persons who were elected and who represented

    25 members of the municipal parliament. So this was a



  12. 1 mixed group; that is, there were Bosniaks, Serbs, and

    2 Croats.

    3 Next came the Party for Democratic Action,

    4 SDA, which won 23 seats, and here you have enclosed a

    5 list of those people who became members, council

    6 members. They were all Bosniaks.

    7 Then came the Croat Democratic Community,

    8 HDZ, which won 21 seats, and here is their list of

    9 those who became municipal councilmen, and they are all

    10 Croats.

    11 Then came the Serb Democratic Party, or SDS,

    12 which won 14 seats, and these are some of the municipal

    13 councilmen.

    14 Then the "Reformisti" coalition of

    15 reformists, who won six seats, and as you can see, they

    16 include both Bosniaks and Serbs, and these are the

    17 names of municipal councilmen elected then.

    18 Then the Muslim Bosniak organisation, MBO,

    19 which won one seat, and this is the name of that

    20 person. He is a Bosniak, and he was elected a

    21 councilman.

    22 And finally the Green Party, which won one

    23 seat, and that man was of Serb origin. He was also a

    24 municipal councilman.

    25 MR. NICE: The next document, please, and it



  13. 1 may be helpful, although the witness doesn't

    2 necessarily refer to it, it may be helpful to the

    3 public if we provide a spare copy of these documents,

    4 and then they can go on the ELMO for the public to

    5 see.

    6 And we're now up to the document, about

    7 page 4, I think, marked "C," and while we are looking

    8 at that, just checking that the right one comes on the

    9 ELMO. Thank you very much.

    10 Q. Is this a diagrammatic representation of the

    11 structure within the Brcko municipality?

    12 A. Yes, that is correct.

    13 Q. In fact, I think what happened was, following

    14 the election, that the SDP and the SDA formed a

    15 coalition with the HDZ and the SDS, and in that

    16 coalition, the SDA did hold the majority; is that

    17 right?

    18 A. I think that this is not quite correct.

    19 After the election, the coalition at the level of the

    20 state of Bosnia-Herzegovina was set up by the SDA, HDZ,

    21 and SDS, in order to take over the power, and the same

    22 happened in the municipality of Brcko. It is not

    23 correct that the SDA had the majority, because all

    24 three parties in the government in power shared the

    25 power. It was more or less a parity, a relationship on



  14. 1 par.

    2 Q. If we look at the diagram, the president, who

    3 had a vice-president, the president was whom? You?

    4 A. Yes.

    5 Q. You show that underneath your vice-president,

    6 there was the parliament, and then below that -- I'm

    7 sorry this isn't in translation -- the next body

    8 immediately below that is what body?

    9 A. That is the municipal government. What it

    10 says here is the executive board or the executive

    11 council.

    12 Q. And that comprised three SDA, three Croatian,

    13 and three Serbian members?

    14 A. Yes, correct.

    15 Q. Going further up -- I'll come to the bottom

    16 of the drawing in a minute, but if we go further up

    17 again, apart from the secretarial support, we see on

    18 the left the police; we see on the right the

    19 Territorial Defence.

    20 A. Yes. Yes.

    21 Q. And then to the right of the Territorial

    22 Defence, we see -- what's that there? SU --

    23 A. This is the court. This is the court.

    24 Q. And in each case you've drawn a line going

    25 directly up to a minister -- to the Republic of



  15. 1 Bosnia-Herzegovina, or to a minister or ministry in the

    2 republic. Can you just explain what that represents?

    3 A. The court which I'm showing was directly

    4 subordinated to the Ministry of the State of

    5 Bosnia-Herzegovina. Then the Territorial Defence,

    6 which I'm pointing at now [indicates], was subordinate

    7 to the republican headquarters of the State of

    8 Bosnia-Herzegovina, so that was the republican

    9 Territorial Defence headquarters. The police here was

    10 directly under the ministry of the police of

    11 Bosnia-Herzegovina, so those were autonomous structures

    12 which were not accountable to me, or rather to

    13 municipal authorities.

    14 Q. Looking at the bottom of the picture, which

    15 will need a marginal adjustment -- thank you very much

    16 -- on the ELMO, have you here set out various

    17 ministries; for example, education and other

    18 functions?

    19 A. Yes.

    20 Q. Let me turn over to the next part of your

    21 exhibit, which is marked D.

    22 A. This is the diagram of the graph of the

    23 municipal government, with all of the municipal

    24 ministries.

    25 MR. NICE: I'm just going to interrupt to say



  16. 1 this: I'm very grateful to my case manager. With her

    2 usual efficiency, she draws to my attention that there

    3 are French translation available for nearly all of this

    4 document. One or two of the last annexes haven't yet

    5 been translated into French, but the balance of the

    6 document is available, if that would assist the

    7 Tribunal.

    8 It may be that there are a sufficiently

    9 limited number of words in either English or French

    10 that the Chamber's happy to continue without them, but

    11 they're here if required. Thank you.

    12 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Yes. Thank

    13 you. All these explanations are very clear, but we are

    14 really very happy to also have the French version.

    15 Thank you very much.

    16 MR. NICE:

    17 Q. The next document, D, is really a repetition

    18 of the previous document with the parliament now -- the

    19 picture of the intervening parliament cut out. What

    20 you've done on this diagram is not only identify

    21 certain post holders, but you've also identified their

    22 ethnic origins or groupings.

    23 So we see here that the president is marked

    24 as -- not as you but as Pero Markovic. Can you just

    25 explain that?



  17. 1 A. This graph here shows the municipal

    2 government, which is made on a parity level, as I've

    3 already said. That is, nine members altogether; three

    4 were Bosniaks, three were Serbs, and three were

    5 Croats.

    6 The president of the government -- that is,

    7 the Prime Minister -- was a Serb, and I'm showing, now

    8 pointing at his name, Pero Markovic [indicates]. He

    9 was a Serb. His deputy was Munib Jusufovic, a

    10 Bosniak. Then you have number 3, which is the Ministry

    11 for Revenue, for the budget, for taxes, and the head of

    12 that Ministry was a Croat. It's this box here

    13 [indicates] --

    14 Q. We need not go through --

    15 A. -- and so on and so forth, yes.

    16 Q. Again, the distribution amongst the ethnic

    17 groupings is revealed. Thank you.

    18 We can now go to, I think, the next document,

    19 which is marked E, and there's only one sheet. Just

    20 explain this for us, because it may be being looked at

    21 in translation, but if you could explain it for us,

    22 please, very briefly.

    23 A. This here is a document showing how the

    24 municipal power was distributed on a parity basis, as I

    25 have just mentioned -- the significance, the ranking,



  18. 1 the character of functions -- so that here, under 1, we

    2 have three posts, which are the highest-ranking posts

    3 at the municipal level.

    4 Q. There is your name as the president?

    5 A. Yes. First comes the president, the mayor.

    6 Yes. That is me, yes. Then the next name. This is

    7 the Prime Minister. That is the president of the

    8 government, and that is Pero Markovic, a Serb. Then

    9 third ranking is the head of the local police, Stjepan

    10 Filipovic, a Croat.

    11 Q. Then we've just -- we needn't go beyond, I

    12 think. Beside number 2, what does the title beside

    13 number 2 tell us?

    14 A. Number 2, it repeats the diagram which you

    15 just saw; that is, the government, the composition of

    16 the government.

    17 Q. And number 3?

    18 A. Number 3. Number 3 -- number 3 is my deputy

    19 -- that is, deputy mayor -- and he is a Croat.

    20 Q. Thank you. Over then to document F, which we

    21 can see from the heading is the territorial -- the

    22 police at the top, and the Territorial Defence

    23 two-thirds of the way down, and again you've identified

    24 various post holders. It can all be gone into detail

    25 if required, but does it again show a distribution of



  19. 1 jobs between the various parties and indeed between the

    2 various ethnic groups?

    3 A. So this document shows, first, the structure

    4 of the police, I mean the ethnic composition of the

    5 police, and the distribution of different duties of

    6 different posts in the police. So on the one -- and

    7 says "Police." Then the topmost post is the head, head

    8 of the police, and that was a Croat, Stjepan

    9 Filipovic.

    10 Q. Yes.

    11 A. Then comes the commander of policemen, and

    12 that was a Serb, Mitar Milic. The third one is the

    13 head of inspection services, and it was this one,

    14 Tanjic, and he was a Bosniak.

    15 Below that, here, we have an approximate

    16 ethnic structure of the police; that is, there were

    17 about 55 per cent of Serbs, 27 per cent were Bosniaks,

    18 and Croats were about -- amounted for about 18 per

    19 cent.

    20 So this was the state of affairs that I found

    21 when I came to -- when I became the mayor.

    22 Q. Then the Territorial Defence has been dealt

    23 with in a similar way and the distribution is

    24 revealed.

    25 A. Yes. Identical.



  20. 1 Q. Over to the following page marked G. This is

    2 the schools in the municipality, with their directors

    3 shown and their ethnic categorisation: Serb, Bosniak,

    4 and one Croat shown, I think, as the director of the

    5 listed schools.

    6 A. Yes.

    7 Q. At the bottom of the page --

    8 A. Yes.

    9 Q. -- the director of the schools: 9, 2, and

    10 1. I think that's what I've already dealt with.

    11 A. Yes. That is correct.

    12 Q. Thank you. We will return to the exhibit

    13 shortly, and I'll take you to the 1st of May of 1992.

    14 Before the events of the 1st of May, 1992,

    15 had you had warnings of things to come both from

    16 individuals and from things that you could see

    17 yourself?

    18 A. There were many signs and rumours that

    19 something was in the offing, that something -- that a

    20 bloodshed might occur. There were all sorts of events,

    21 all sorts of indicators, beginning from the general

    22 state of affairs in Bosnia-Herzegovina which prevailed

    23 during the latest period of time, which, of course,

    24 affected the municipality of Brcko. There were also

    25 various signs of what was coming in the municipality



  21. 1 itself, including direct calls to me by individual

    2 citizens, either by those who were trying to tell me

    3 about these things openly or surreptitiously, and the

    4 behaviour of the army was particularly symptomatic.

    5 I think it most struck the ire. It was quite

    6 evident that the army was getting ready, or, rather,

    7 the army was involved in whatever was about to happen.

    8 There is a great deal of evidence about that. I could

    9 really spend a lot of time telling you about it.

    10 Q. Summarising it as you have done in paragraph

    11 16, or has been done for you in paragraph 16, did you

    12 become aware of the gathering of military equipment and

    13 soldiers, the distribution of weapons to Serb villages

    14 in the municipality, building of roadblocks and

    15 checkpoints, and also the presence of paramilitary

    16 groups in and around the town?

    17 A. Yes. As I have said, it lasted for several

    18 months before the war broke out. The army was

    19 distributing the weapons among the Serb population in

    20 villages. Then the army had also involved the reserve

    21 troops, and they were made up exclusively of Serbs.

    22 Q. Right. As to the men you saw in and around

    23 the town, were you aware of men foreign to the area;

    24 and if so, what sort of numbers and what sort of ages?

    25 Don't read the summary, because I think if



  22. 1 you just tell the Judges, it will be more helpful.

    2 Were you aware of men foreign to the area; and if so,

    3 what sort of numbers and what sort of age were they?

    4 A. It was quite obvious. So for about a month

    5 or two before the war, in the town of Brcko there were

    6 about 300 or even 400 men, that sort of magnitude, who

    7 were not from the area, whom we did not know. So they

    8 were outsiders. They were mostly aged between

    9 20 to, say, 35.

    10 Q. Thank you. Did you inquire -- paragraph 17,

    11 but you don't trouble with that yourself, Mr. Ramic --

    12 but did you inquire of the JNA commander what was

    13 happening and did he tell you?

    14 A. I would -- I called him repeatedly in

    15 relation to all these happenings, and on several

    16 occasions I also went to see him and talk to him and

    17 ask him why all these activities, and particularly why

    18 were the tanks digging in and why were groups with

    19 machine-guns deployed around the town or on the main

    20 roads.

    21 What was particularly odd was that most of

    22 these weapons were aimed at the town.

    23 He would not discuss it much and, as a rule,

    24 would reply to all my questions that it was in line

    25 with some army activities. Or when I would be very



  23. 1 direct and very blunt, then he would answer, "I don't

    2 have to answer that."

    3 Q. Did he in any way explain the build-up of

    4 forces by reference to any threat from elsewhere?

    5 A. From time to time he would answer that these

    6 activities were being conducted also as a defence

    7 against incursion of some foreign forces. When I would

    8 ask him, "What important forces?" then he would say,

    9 "From Croatia." Should I continue?

    10 Q. If there's anything more to fill out that

    11 answer, yes, anything else that he said to you

    12 that's --

    13 A. Yes. So he seemed to be concerned about the

    14 safety of the citizens there, thinking that they

    15 might -- that it might be imperilled by the incursion of

    16 some forces from outside, and by that he meant

    17 Croatia.

    18 On that occasion, I told him, "Well, if this

    19 is the concern for the citizenry, then why don't we

    20 organise a joint unit?" That was my proposal for

    21 him: 150 men strong, with 50 Serbs, 50 Croats, and 50

    22 Bosniaks, and let them look after the area and be

    23 placed under his command. However, he refused that.

    24 Q. Did the SDS, the party of the Serbs, make a

    25 claim to divide Brcko, a claim which was initially



  24. 1 unacceptable to your party, not least because of your

    2 majority or comparative majority position in the town?

    3 A. The SDS did not have a majority in the town,

    4 by no means. The overall number of -- they accounted

    5 for barely 20 per cent of the population in the town,

    6 and even in the territory of the municipality of Brcko,

    7 the Serb population again accounted for some 20 per

    8 cent. But they wanted to divide it, to partition the

    9 town, and they were saying -- they were doing it quite

    10 openly, because they wanted to call it the Serb

    11 Municipality of Brcko.

    12 Q. Under the pressure that you were facing, was

    13 there a televised parliamentary session on the 27th of

    14 April, where the SDA's proposition to divide the town

    15 was debated?

    16 A. Well, these requests to have the town

    17 divided, to have a Serb Municipality of Brcko

    18 established, that was something that we could not

    19 accept because it was impossible. I mean, it was

    20 simply not feasible. Of course, we were not

    21 particularly happy to be involved in such discussions.

    22 But then they began to threaten and said,

    23 "Well, if you won't do it, then we shall do it by

    24 force." At that, we agreed to convene the parliament

    25 -- rather, the municipal parliament -- and have a



  25. 1 decision about that. That was on the 17th of April,

    2 1992.

    3 Q. The result of the debate was what?

    4 A. Well, I have to say that all the parties in

    5 the town took part in it. It was very tense. In other

    6 parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, people were already being

    7 killed. The war was already on. Even in the

    8 neighbourhood community -- in the adjacent community --

    9 even in the neighbouring community of Bjeljina, for

    10 instance, it had already broken out.

    11 So people were sensing that, and they were

    12 afraid that the same thing might happen in Brcko, and

    13 then they accepted -- and then they accepted -- they

    14 agreed then to have the municipality divided.

    15 So the conclusion of that parliamentary

    16 debate was to allow them to take out a part of the town

    17 and part of the municipality and call it the Serb

    18 Municipality of Brcko.

    19 However, at that time, we did not

    20 determine -- we did not define that particular part and

    21 when it would go into force. We had decided to do that

    22 at the next session, which was called for the

    23 4th of May.

    24 Q. Between --

    25 A. I should like to adjust one more thing. So



  26. 1 it was as early as April -- I'm referring to the SDS.

    2 So in early April, before all that I'm talking about

    3 had happened, they had already proclaimed the Serb

    4 Municipality of Brcko through some decisions that they

    5 had taken, and they also had it carried by various

    6 media.

    7 So we knew that they had already decided that

    8 they would be a Serb Municipality of Brcko, and they

    9 had even decided who would be the mayor of their

    10 municipality, and his name was Djordje Ristanic, and he

    11 was one of the SDS councilmen in our parliament.

    12 Q. Between -- well, at around this time, but

    13 between the date of the discussion or debate on

    14 television and the 1st of May, when the bridges were

    15 blown up, were people leaving Brcko for safer

    16 territory?

    17 A. Yes. This was very noticeable. Many people

    18 were leaving the town, and sometimes there was a sort

    19 of panic situation because many, many people were

    20 leaving.

    21 Q. Indeed, did there come a time when your own

    22 family left but you stayed?

    23 A. Yes. Let me add that my mother, who was old,

    24 was ailing. She lived with me. I had small children.

    25 My son was only six years old at the time, and so I had



  27. 1 to take care of them too, but it was only five or six

    2 days before the outbreak of war.

    3 MR. NICE: Can we return to map Exhibit 57,

    4 please, which is the green map; this one. It shows the

    5 geography in some detail. It isn't in the summary, but

    6 I think the witness may be able to help with this.

    7 Q. By the 1st of May, when the bridges over the

    8 Sava at Brcko were blown up, where was the nearest

    9 effective bridge east or west of Brcko, and had any

    10 other bridges by then been destroyed, please?

    11 A. On the 1st of May, when the bridges in Brcko

    12 were destroyed, there was not a single bridge across

    13 which you could go to Croatia. All the bridges had

    14 already been destroyed. Otherwise, the nearest bridge,

    15 which was destroyed several months previously, was in

    16 Orasje, which is about 20 kilometres away from Brcko,

    17 25 kilometres.

    18 Q. Are you saying that for the total length of

    19 this map, all the way west past Bosanski Brod and past

    20 Bosanski Gradica, there were no bridges --

    21 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, Mr. Nice,

    22 please. We didn't hear you.

    23 MR. NICE: I'm sorry. My mistake.

    24 Q. Are you saying that on this map, going west

    25 past Bosanski Brod and all the way through Bosanski



  28. 1 Gradiska, there were no bridges at the time that the

    2 bridge at Brcko was blown up?

    3 A. That's right. There was not a single bridge

    4 you could go across. There were bridges, but they had

    5 all been destroyed previously.

    6 Q. We know from other evidence that when the

    7 bridges at Brcko were blown up, many people were killed

    8 and their body parts found in and around the town. And

    9 again, this is not something that's covered in your

    10 summary, but I'm going to ask you to deal with it in

    11 any event.

    12 Two parts to the question. First, how did it

    13 come about that there were people on the bridge liable

    14 to be killed in that way? And the second part of the

    15 question: Can you help us, from what you may now know,

    16 about whether any Serbs were killed in that

    17 destruction, or not; and if not, why not?

    18 A. First of all, I'd like to say that we were

    19 afraid that somebody might blow up the bridge, and so I

    20 ordered the bridge to be protected. A group of

    21 policemen was set up, a sort of control point,

    22 checkpoint, at the bridge itself. This checkpoint was

    23 manned by ten individuals, so that the bridge could not

    24 be destroyed by anybody; it could only have been taken

    25 over and destroyed by a very well-prepared group of



  29. 1 professionals.

    2 And that is in fact what happened. Later on,

    3 we learnt from the survivors -- that is to say, from

    4 the policemen who had protected the bridge -- that in

    5 the course of the night, a group of some 20 men turned

    6 up. That is what the professional policemen told us,

    7 that they saw another very well-prepared group of

    8 people, numbering some 20 individuals, and that most of

    9 those people spoke a dialect which showed that they had

    10 come from Serbia.

    11 And they had taken over our checkpoint. They

    12 brought in a vehicle full of dynamite. This was

    13 ascertained later on, because the policemen had seen

    14 that they brought a vehicle up and placed it at the end

    15 of the bridge and waited to activate the explosive.

    16 All this is correct, and we have the testimonies of

    17 witnesses, eyewitnesses.

    18 And then they waited for the morning, which

    19 is to say the 30th of April, at 4.30 a.m., to activate

    20 the explosive. The reason for which they waited was

    21 that as there was a situation of war in Croatia,

    22 Croatia did not allow free passage across the bridge.

    23 However, at intervals, at a certain time, it would

    24 allow people to pass across, so that an agreement had

    25 been reached that they should give free passage to



  30. 1 people between 4.00 and 5.00 a.m., and that is the time

    2 when they would allow people to pass across from

    3 Croatia into Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    4 There were many men from Bosnia-Herzegovina

    5 who were employed in Croatia and Slovenia, Germany,

    6 Austria; that is to say, the neighbouring western

    7 countries. And that is -- the German term used is the

    8 gastarbeiters, the guest workers. And they would come

    9 to visit their families, for two reasons. They would

    10 come first because at that time, there were the 1st of

    11 May celebrations, when they had their May Day holidays,

    12 and so they would take the weekend off; and on the

    13 other hand, their families informed them that the

    14 situation was very tense, and that they did not feel

    15 secure, so these people, these workers, wanted to go

    16 back home to protect their families.

    17 They were, for the most part, men; very

    18 active men, working men, aged between, say, 20 to 40.

    19 At that time, according to our later assessment, there

    20 were about 150 people on the bridge, and we're quite

    21 certain that there was not a single Serb amongst them.

    22 From what we learned later on, and the names of the

    23 people, as far as we were able to discover, all the

    24 names, all the people were in fact Bosniaks.

    25 Q. When the bridge was blown, were you in Brcko



  31. 1 yourself?

    2 A. Yes, I was.

    3 Q. Did you make an attempt with the local JNA

    4 commander not to have the town occupied by JNA troops

    5 but to let the civilian police maintain law and order,

    6 and did you indeed go on television seeking to calm the

    7 civil population?

    8 A. Yes. Let me put it this way: You didn't ask

    9 me, but it is important to know that two bridges were

    10 blown up in Brcko. There were in fact two bridges.

    11 One was the one that we're discussing now, and that was

    12 the bridge and the -- both communication for vehicles

    13 and for pedestrians; and another one, a kilometre lower

    14 down, and that was a railway bridge, and that bridge

    15 too was blown up, within the space of three minutes,

    16 one after the other.

    17 The blowing-up of the bridge had the effect

    18 of being an exceptional catastrophe at that point, and

    19 it was very frightening, and panic reigned in town. Of

    20 course the people started to flee from their houses en

    21 masse, and they went towards the south, the south-lying

    22 regions. In this general panic, we had to deal with

    23 law and order in town, and I, myself, as the mayor,

    24 immediately convened a meeting of the defence council;

    25 according to my mandate, it was my duty to do so.



  32. 1 A member of that body was commander of the

    2 garrison. However, he didn't wish to come to me, but

    3 he asked me to go to him, to the barracks. And I did

    4 this, although I knew that my safety would not be

    5 guaranteed. So I went to the meeting at the barracks,

    6 and I asked -- that is to say, he said that he would

    7 bring the army into town to take control of all the

    8 more important points in town.

    9 I think he told me this because he was not

    10 certain what would happen in town afterwards. He could

    11 have done that without telling me, in fact, but that

    12 was the reason; he wasn't sure, he didn't know what the

    13 army would encounter once they entered town. And at

    14 the time, I told him that I would not allow the army to

    15 enter into the town, that that was the job of the

    16 police force, and that it was up to the police to

    17 maintain law and order in town.

    18 Q. Was it following that that you went on

    19 television?

    20 A. Yes. When I said what I did, he put an

    21 ultimatum to me; that is, he laid down conditions. He

    22 said that if I succeeded in calming the population, and

    23 I would only be able to do so -- that was his request,

    24 that I go on local television and call upon the people

    25 to calm down. If I were to do this, then he would



  33. 1 agree not to bring the army into town. And I accepted

    2 that. I accepted going on television and addressing

    3 the people.

    4 Q. In the course of your time at the television

    5 station, did somebody telephone in to that television

    6 station with some news?

    7 A. Yes. The programme lasted for a very short

    8 space of time. It lasted two or three minutes; not

    9 more than that. As soon as I appealed to the civilian

    10 population with instructions telling them not to panic,

    11 and that we would keep things under control, and so on,

    12 people called me up directly in the studio from various

    13 parts of town telling me that the army was already

    14 entering town. And then, at one point, people phoned

    15 me up directly from the local community of the 4th of

    16 July -- you have that in your documents -- and they let

    17 me know, "Well, Mr. President, the army is at present

    18 shooting at us."

    19 After that -- and this was all live,

    20 televised live -- the deputy commander of the garrison,

    21 who had come to the television station with me, I told

    22 him -- that is to say, I asked him, "Well, what does

    23 that mean? What's the army doing? Didn't we agree

    24 that the army was not to enter town?"

    25 And that is where the television programme



  34. 1 was interrupted.

    2 Q. Did you decide that what had been said to you

    3 by the JNA commander was something you could not rely

    4 on anymore; and in consequence, did you, yourself,

    5 escape when you were able?

    6 A. I think, and I claim that today, they didn't

    7 want to let me go; they would have kept me and probably

    8 killed me. And I bear this out by the fact that when

    9 we set out for the television station, which is in the

    10 centre of town, I was escorted by two armoured vehicles,

    11 with at least 20 well-armed individuals wearing

    12 different military uniforms. And they were very

    13 strange; they appeared very strange at the time. I

    14 didn't recognise them. And I in fact realised that I

    15 was their prisoner. But I wanted to save the people

    16 and the town, so I continued -- I kept my part of the

    17 bargain, kept my promise.

    18 And in the television station, after citizens

    19 had telephoned direct to say that the shooting had

    20 started, I took advantage of that interruption in the

    21 broadcast, and the commander -- when the commander

    22 didn't know what to do, having heard the news, what he

    23 did in fact was to try to check whether this was true,

    24 so I took advantage of that particular moment to leave

    25 the television studio, and luckily my own car was



  35. 1 parked there, so I was able to get into my car and to

    2 escape their control.

    3 Q. You ultimately, as you say in your summary,

    4 went to a place which I think -- is it also called Free

    5 Brcko, or was it called Free Brcko, Gornji Rahic, and

    6 you were there for the war?

    7 Are we able to see that on the green map, or

    8 would it be the town map that would be most useful?

    9 A. Yes, you can see it on the green map. Gornji

    10 Rahic is not marked there, but it is between these two

    11 places: Brka and Moaca. Right here, where I'm

    12 pointing at [indicates].

    13 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... shows

    14 that it was possible to survive for the duration of the

    15 war, and that's where you were?

    16 A. According to the law and my own mandate, in

    17 case of war or the imminent danger of war, I was head

    18 of the defence council; that was according to my

    19 mandate. And when the shooting started and the attack

    20 was launched by these units and paramilitary units, I

    21 organised the defence of the rest of the town, because

    22 -- we succeeded in controlling part of the town and

    23 the southern reaches. So we were able, in the course

    24 of the war, to do that, and I spent most of my time

    25 during the war there.



  36. 1 Q. Thank you.

    2 MR. NICE: I'd like you now to return to the

    3 documentary exhibits, and if the usher would be good

    4 enough to carry on with the process of laying them on

    5 the ELMO for the advantage of the public while the

    6 witness looks at them on the desk in front of him,

    7 we've reached Annex H, which is a document with which

    8 the Chamber may already be familiar, three sheets of

    9 paper with 39 names typed on them.

    10 Q. Is this a list that you were asked to draw

    11 up, or that you certainly did draw up?

    12 A. Yes, that's right; that's the list.

    13 Q. Were you asked to draw it up, or did you draw

    14 it up on your own initiative?

    15 A. When we discussed these matters, I cannot

    16 remember whether I was asked to do so or whether I did

    17 it on my own, but I compiled the list, yes.

    18 Q. This is 39 names of what exactly?

    19 A. Those are the names of prominent citizens

    20 from Brcko, well-known citizens or prominent members of

    21 the SDA party who were killed, whom I know were killed

    22 on the first day of the conflict or aggression.

    23 MR. NICE: If the Chamber, as it were, keep

    24 its hand on Exhibit H, or Annex H, and if the witness

    25 would be good enough then to turn over to the next



  37. 1 document, which is headed I, and which runs to some six

    2 pages of names, a hundred in all, the Chamber will want

    3 to know that it's looking at a document that is not in

    4 alphabetical order; that is, document I is not in

    5 alphabetical order, but it is a hundred names, and it

    6 is subject to one correction. It is -- certainly at

    7 least one correction.

    8 It is the same hundred names as the Chamber

    9 has been looking at on Exhibit 12, where the names have

    10 been re-ordered into an alphabetical list, but at the

    11 time that this witness saw this list, for general

    12 reference only, it was in this format; that is to say,

    13 it was not alphabetical.

    14 Q. So, Mr. Ramic, were you shown the document

    15 I've just spoken of to the Chamber; namely, the

    16 document headed I, of a hundred names?

    17 A. Yes, I was shown the document.

    18 Q. Were you asked on that document to identify,

    19 by highlighting, witnesses -- names that you knew as

    20 being either prominent or, if not prominent, at least

    21 associated with the SDA?

    22 A. Yes. Yes, that was it, more or less. They

    23 were either members of the party or sympathisers of the

    24 party or people who voted for the SDA party in the

    25 election.



  38. 1 Q. If we stay with the first page of this Annex

    2 I and look at number 4, where the name "Amer Jasarevic"

    3 was written down, there was a correction. Is that your

    4 correction or somebody's correction before the document

    5 came to you, to "Enes"?

    6 A. Yes. On the list that I was shown, it said

    7 "Amer Jasarevic". However, that was not correct. His

    8 real name was Enes Jasarevic. He was a man for -- whom

    9 we know was killed in Brcko during that time. He has a

    10 son called Amer, who is alive today.

    11 Q. As the Chamber can discover, the witness has

    12 highlighted, from this list of 100 names, some 57

    13 associated, in the way he's described, with the SDA.

    14 If we move on from Annex I to Annex J,

    15 please. It's the next sheet in the bundle, please,

    16 Mr. Ramic. I think it will be underneath. Here's

    17 another copy coming, to save time.

    18 Is this a document prepared by you that shows

    19 the local SDA boards?

    20 A. Yes. I did that, yes.

    21 Q. Tell us about the particular areas you've

    22 highlighted in blue here. One of them -- for example,

    23 Kolobara -- is probably familiar to the Chamber as an

    24 essentially or a Muslim-dominated area. Tell us about

    25 the others and tell us what you've highlighted.



  39. 1 A. This shows a diagram of the organisation of

    2 the SDA party at the level of the Brcko municipality,

    3 and these rectangles here contain the names of the

    4 local branches of the party, who were linked up with

    5 areas in town or with villages in the Brcko

    6 municipality. Down here you have the villages, and up

    7 here is the town proper. Down below are the villages.

    8 So part of the town -- as you can see,

    9 Kolobara here, the next Gluhakovac, Mujkici, et cetera,

    10 and the blue designates those sections of town which

    11 were occupied on the 1st of May and where the killings

    12 took place.

    13 Q. The areas that you've highlighted, were some

    14 or all of them areas with a Muslim majority

    15 population?

    16 A. All the areas were majority ones, with the

    17 exception of this one here, Grcica, the first one.

    18 There was a majority Serb population, whereas the other

    19 areas were Bosniak for the most part.

    20 Q. And all occupied on that 1st of May?

    21 A. Yes. That's right. They were all occupied

    22 on the 1st of May.

    23 Q. Next document, please, Annex K. Again, we

    24 can see some familiar names now. In particular, we

    25 start off with Kolobara. What can you tell us about



  40. 1 this list?

    2 First of all, before we come to the

    3 highlightings in two different colours, blue and

    4 yellow, what are the handwritten names, area by area?

    5 A. They are the composition of the local

    6 councils of the SDA party. So each of these local sort

    7 of cells, organisations of the SDA, consisted of a

    8 Local Board with five members, and those are the names

    9 of the members in the areas which were occupied

    10 straightaway on the 1st of May and where the killings

    11 took place.

    12 So we have Kolobara first, Bijeljinska Cesta,

    13 Novo Brcko.

    14 Q. The highlightings in blue show what, if you

    15 can remember?

    16 A. Blue denotes the people who were killed.

    17 Q. Is this the names that -- is this names that

    18 you found on -- the hundred names on the list?

    19 A. Yes. A part of it. Not all the names. Not

    20 all the names are there, but most of them, yes.

    21 Q. The yellow highlights, we see two on the

    22 first page --

    23 A. Yes. They're not on the list of 100 names,

    24 but they too were killed.

    25 Q. And your knowledge that they were killed



  41. 1 comes from other sources, does it?

    2 A. In fact, we know that some people were killed

    3 in that way because there were eyewitnesses to the

    4 killings. There were witnesses who carried their dead

    5 bodies as well, and we also have cases where there are

    6 no witnesses, where the people have disappeared, but no

    7 trace has yet been found of them.

    8 Q. Finally, there is a last document. I think

    9 it's the last thing I have to ask the witness to deal

    10 with. It's also called I, because it's the same list

    11 of a hundred names, but it's now been highlighted in

    12 both blue, as original, and green.

    13 The green highlights refer to what?

    14 A. The green colour denotes the names of people

    15 who later on -- that is to say, I saw this list on two

    16 occasions. The first time I recognised the names

    17 marked in blue. The second time, on the second

    18 occasion, I added these two other names marked in

    19 green. Today I can tell you that there are some other

    20 names which I recognise from this list which I have not

    21 marked in any way on the list.

    22 Q. The ones that you marked in green, were those

    23 names of people known to be associated with the SDA in

    24 the local communities and so on, the Local Boards?

    25 A. Yes. Those are the same names.



  42. 1 Q. Since there are 6 green names in addition to

    2 the 57 blue, that takes us to a total of 63 the number

    3 of names from the list of 100 that had a connection

    4 with the SDA.

    5 I don't know what you're going to tell me

    6 about the other names that you say you can now

    7 identify. Are you simply identifying names whose fate

    8 you know, or are you identifying names whose fate you

    9 know and you're able to say they're connected to the

    10 SDA?

    11 A. This whole list -- and I can state my opinion

    12 on that -- has a common denominator, and that is that

    13 most of the names were linked up with the SDA.

    14 Q. Thank you very much. The other names that

    15 you wanted to tell me about, or you wanted to tell the

    16 Chamber about, but you said weren't marked but that you

    17 knew something about them, just take one of those names

    18 and give us an example of what it was you were going to

    19 tell us.

    20 A. Well, I'll tell you in just a minute. For

    21 example, I'm looking at the name under number 33, Rasim

    22 Causevic. For example, that is the brother of a friend

    23 of mine, a prominent member of the SDA party. When I

    24 looked at the list the first time, I didn't recognise

    25 that name.



  43. 1 Then, for example, there is number 61,

    2 Muharem Ahmetovic. That is the father of a policeman

    3 from Brcko; that is to say, I'm not speaking about that

    4 policeman, but I'm speaking about this particular man

    5 who voted for the SDA, and that was common knowledge,

    6 that he had voted for the party.

    7 I have other cases of this. For example, 86,

    8 Andrija Kolar. He's a Croat by ethnicity but married

    9 to a Muslim, and he was a policeman before the war. He

    10 too was killed, together with his son, because, if I

    11 can put it that way, he was, in a way -- I can't say he

    12 was a member of the SDA, but he was a sympathiser of

    13 the party.

    14 So that's how it goes. I could give you some

    15 other names as well. So I think that I could find

    16 other names and other cases in point.

    17 MR. NICE: With the Chamber's leave and

    18 without being impertinent, it may be the time the

    19 Chamber was going to have a break, and if by chance it

    20 was --

    21 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Do you have

    22 many questions here or have you completed now?

    23 MR. NICE: I've completed the questions, but

    24 it looks like the witness might want one more

    25 opportunity to look through this list, and he might



  44. 1 possibly come back after the break and give us details

    2 of any other names, because we know the Defence wants

    3 to know as much about these people as they can hear.

    4 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Very well. All

    5 right. We shall now adjourn and we shall resume

    6 at 4.00.

    7 --- Recess taken at 3.37 p.m.

    8 --- On resuming at 4.05 p.m.

    9 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] The Tribunal is

    10 in session. Will you have the accused brought in,

    11 please.

    12 [The witness entered court]

    13 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Nice, we shall resume.

    14 MR. NICE: Thank you.

    15 Q. Mr. Ramic, you were looking through that last

    16 list appendixed within your exhibit to see if there

    17 were other names you could help us with. Using the

    18 numbers on the left-hand side, if there were any other

    19 names that you could help us with, tell us what you've

    20 been able to find.

    21 A. Please, would the Court allow me to raise an

    22 objection in relation to this list? I think that quite

    23 a few of these names are wrong, you see. And sometimes

    24 it's very hard to tell, and then when you look at the

    25 list for a longer period of time, then you think of the



  45. 1 right name. But I think that quite a few of these

    2 names are wrong. At any rate, I will tell you the

    3 names now.

    4 33, as I mentioned, Rasim Causevic. 61,

    5 Muharem Ahmetovic. 74, Ferid Ibrahimovic.

    6 Q. What about him?

    7 A. He and the next one, 76, Hilmija Cerimagic,

    8 they are men who lived in my neighbourhood, near my

    9 place. They were my neighbours. The first one,

    10 Number 74, he even had a nickname, "Major."

    11 And 77, Sefko Selmanovic, that is an elderly

    12 gentleman, and I recognised him as the father of a

    13 colleague of mine, an engineer.

    14 Then number 85, it says here "Eldin

    15 Salkovic," but that is incorrect. I remembered that

    16 there is a person called Elvedin Salkanovic; that's a

    17 young man who was also killed.

    18 Then I also mention 86, Andrija Kolar. Then

    19 I recognised these two, 88 and 89. They are two

    20 brothers, young men, Aldin and Amir Tursic. They, just

    21 like number 85, Elvedin Salkanovic, were young men,

    22 members of the youth organisation of the SDA.

    23 Numbers 94 and 95, Enver Residovic, and down

    24 there it only says "Residovic." I think that this

    25 relates to two women whose last name was Residovic.



  46. 1 One of the women was younger, and the other one was

    2 older, and they were both killed at the very

    3 beginning.

    4 That's what I wish to say. Perhaps there

    5 could be even more of the kind, but I'm sorry, I

    6 recognise the names under numbers 3, 6, and 7,

    7 respectively, Omerasevic. I know their names. I know

    8 their names. They are from a part of Brcko which we

    9 call Ciganluk.

    10 Q. The people that you've named, were they

    11 Muslims, or were there other ethnicities involved?

    12 You've spoken of the one Croat, number 86 --

    13 A. There were other ethnic groups as well.

    14 There are individuals of that kind here, too.

    15 Q. Can you just point that out, so that we know

    16 who they are?

    17 A. There is also Number 17, Franjo Vugrincic; he

    18 is a Croat. Then 21, Josip Lucic; he is another

    19 Croat. Then 36, Miroslav Kljukijevic; he is also a

    20 Croat. 45, Stipo Glavosevic; he is also a Croat. And

    21 as far as I can see, 86, Andrija Kolar; he is another

    22 Croat.

    23 Q. And as to their deaths, did you hear anything

    24 that explained why they were killed?

    25 A. Yes. The one under 21, Josip Lucic, he was a



  47. 1 young fellow, his nickname was Pepa, and it does say so

    2 here. He was a prominent athlete, a prominent

    3 sportsman in Brcko. And I know -- or rather, I have

    4 been informed from reliable sources that the accused

    5 had killed him, personally.

    6 Then 45, Stipo Glavosevic. He is a

    7 middle-aged man, and he was a butcher at the Bimeks

    8 meat factory in Brcko, and I was told by witnesses that

    9 he had also been killed by the accused personally.

    10 86, Andrija Kolar, and here the name of his

    11 son is missing, and there are witnesses who saw him

    12 killed, too.

    13 As for the others, I've only heard that they

    14 have been killed, but about these, I know for certain

    15 that they were killed.

    16 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... the

    17 reason why Andrija Kolar and his son were killed?

    18 A. Andrija Kolar and his son, they were killed

    19 because -- I believe because -- it is difficult for me

    20 to explain it -- because they were people that Serbs

    21 did not trust much. They distrusted them because his

    22 wife was a Muslim and his grandfather was a Croat. His

    23 wife was a saleswoman, and she was an acquaintance of

    24 my family, if I may put it that way.

    25 Q. The other Croats who were killed, do you have



  48. 1 any reason -- thank you for telling us who they were,

    2 but do you have any reasons for why they were killed?

    3 A. I believe that the SDS policy, basically,

    4 was -- and one could really see that in many things,

    5 that it was -- that it was focusing on the elimination

    6 of other ethnic groups so as to gain areas in which

    7 they represented an absolute majority, ethnically

    8 speaking, I mean. A particular reason -- that is,

    9 those people had not done anything, so there was no

    10 other reason for that.

    11 Q. Before I turn from the list -- and there's

    12 one other question I've got to get you to deal with,

    13 but on this long list of the names of those who were

    14 killed, is there anything about the distribution of

    15 professions or jobs amongst those you've been able to

    16 identify? Were they all working men, or were they all

    17 professional men, or was there an even distribution of

    18 occupations, or was there an emphasis on a particular

    19 type of occupation or position in society? Tell us.

    20 A. We have a very diverse structure on this

    21 list. Some are very young and some are of fairly

    22 advanced age; that is, ranging between 20 to -- close

    23 to 70, I should say. And a very wide range of

    24 occupations. There were a number of prominent

    25 citizens, but also rank-and-file people, so there is



  49. 1 hardly anything that they would all have in common.

    2 The only thing that they do have in common, I believe,

    3 is that the majority of them were nothing else than

    4 just the supporters of the SDA party.

    5 Q. Of course, when you marked your list of 39

    6 names of the prominent Muslims, I think you

    7 identified -- was it some -- the list of 39 prominent

    8 names, was that names of people who you believed to be

    9 killed, or was it just 39 prominent names at the time?

    10 A. No, this is a list of prominent persons who

    11 were killed and who belonged to -- prominent Bosniaks,

    12 ethnically.

    13 Q. I have been asked by Defence counsel to just

    14 deal with one other of the annexes. It's the one that

    15 comes immediately before the last list. It's got

    16 an "L" on it, and I passed over it rather quickly,

    17 having looked at "K," so it might be convenient if we

    18 just put "K" and "L" together.

    19 You've dealt with K and told us about how

    20 these people were representing the SDA in local

    21 communities and how the highlightings show those who

    22 have been killed.

    23 Just deal now with the similar document that

    24 is Annex L.

    25 A. Document K originated in the course of a



  50. 1 conversation which I had about half a year ago, several

    2 months ago, but at that time, I think that I didn't

    3 have enough time, as we talked, and I had no time to

    4 properly draw up this document, the L one. So I did

    5 that subsequently, because we then decided that I

    6 should provide the names of those 12 local boards which

    7 had been occupied.

    8 So the document L was something that I had

    9 promised to supply the Tribunal subsequently, and I

    10 wrote that subsequently. It shows other occupied parts

    11 of the town of Brcko, where the SDA party was and where

    12 those individuals were killed.

    13 MR. NICE: Thank you very much. That's all I

    14 ask of this witness.

    15 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Thank you.

    16 Now, as you know, Mr. Ramic, it is the Defence of the

    17 accused who will now take the floor and who will be

    18 asking the questions, which it is their right to ask.

    19 Will you tell us how long the

    20 examination-in-chief lasted?

    21 THE REGISTRAR: One hour and thirty minutes,

    22 Mr. President.

    23 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] All right.

    24 Mr. Greaves, you have more or less one hour and thirty

    25 minutes, perhaps a bit more than that. Do you think



  51. 1 that will be enough?

    2 MR. GREAVES: Possibly up to two hours, but I

    3 hope to finish today. That's what I'm aiming at.

    4 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Thank you. But

    5 we shall have another break because we have a long

    6 afternoon today. So we shall have another break.

    7 Mr. Greaves, you can begin.

    8 Cross-examined by Mr. Greaves:

    9 Q. Mr. Ramic, can I start by asking you to do

    10 this, please: If I ask you a question which you do not

    11 understand or which is confusing or badly asked, just

    12 stop me straightaway, ask me to repeat, and I'll do my

    13 best to make it a more sensible question. Is that all

    14 right?

    15 Mr. Ramic, can I ask you, please --

    16 A. Yes, quite all right.

    17 Q. Can I ask you, please, are you still involved

    18 in the political life of your country?

    19 A. No, I did not.

    20 Q. How long did your involvement in politics

    21 continue after the war in 1992?

    22 A. In the latter half of -- until October 1993,

    23 I was the president of the wartime presidency of the

    24 municipality of Brcko; that is, in the area of the

    25 municipality of Brcko. Then I moved to Tuzla as a



  52. 1 member of the government of the Tuzla district. In

    2 1994, I became the president of the assembly of the

    3 parliament in the canton of Tuzla, and I was there

    4 until October 1996, and after that I did not want to be

    5 involved in politics any longer.

    6 Q. Before you became involved in forming the SDA

    7 and getting involved with that party in the Brcko area,

    8 had you been involved in any other political party

    9 before then, or was this something that for the first

    10 time you started to become involved in politics?

    11 A. No. I was not actively involved in politics

    12 before that.

    13 Q. In the course of the time when you were

    14 involved in setting up and getting involved in things

    15 like elections and so on, did you become familiar with

    16 not just your own party, but the people who were

    17 involved in other political parties?

    18 A. You mean locally?

    19 Q. Locally is what I'm principally interested

    20 in.

    21 A. Yes, we knew one another.

    22 Q. Can you confirm this for me, Mr. Ramic: that

    23 prior to the war breaking out in 1992, Goran Jelisic

    24 was not involved with any political party or political

    25 movement in the Brcko area at all?



  53. 1 A. I wouldn't know.

    2 Q. Did you hear anything of him prior to the

    3 war, in any way at all, as being in the SDS or any of

    4 the other political parties?

    5 A. No, I haven't heard about that.

    6 Q. Just to get the historical context precise,

    7 can you confirm this: that the order in which the

    8 various political -- new political parties emerged in

    9 the early 1990s was this: Firstly the SDA; then the

    10 HDZ; and finally, of the ethnically based parties, the

    11 SDS? Would that be correct?

    12 A. Excuse me. Do you again mean at the local

    13 level?

    14 Q. At a republic level.

    15 A. At the republic level, it is quite possible

    16 that such a list existed, but there was very little

    17 time because all the deadlines were very short.

    18 Q. And of the former regime, what we would

    19 commonly refer to as the Communist Party, that changed

    20 its identity somewhat, did it, and became the Social

    21 Democratic Party?

    22 A. Yes, that is correct.

    23 Q. Of the fellow members of the Executive Board

    24 that was initially set up, of which your brother was

    25 the party president, is this right: that just one of



  54. 1 those people, as far as you know, was killed, Smail

    2 Ribic?

    3 A. Yes, it is quite true; one of the members of

    4 the Executive Board.

    5 Q. Just so that I understand it correctly, the

    6 system for election at which you and your party

    7 participated, was that by the preparation of a list for

    8 each party of 90 candidates, and the voting was done on

    9 the basis of the voter voting for the party, as a

    10 result of which then certain numbers of that party were

    11 then elected?

    12 A. Yes. You could say that, yes.

    13 Q. Would that be depending on the number of

    14 votes that the party got in order -- when the list is

    15 submitted by the party, 1 to 90, if you get enough

    16 votes for 24 members, the first 24 names on the list

    17 would have been elected?

    18 A. Yes, quite. One has to respect the

    19 sequence.

    20 Q. Did all of the parties which contested that

    21 election, did they all advance 90 names? For example,

    22 as well as the principal parties who won seats, the

    23 Reform Coalition as well, the MBO, did they all put 90

    24 names forward?

    25 A. Yes. It was by statute like that. Any party



  55. 1 which wanted to take part in the elections had to come

    2 up with a list of 90 names.

    3 Q. Could I ask you, please, Mr. Ramic, to look

    4 at Annex B, if you'd be so kind?

    5 Before we turn and I start asking you

    6 specific questions about that list, can you help me

    7 about this: As well as your obvious interest in what

    8 the fate of your own party members and party members of

    9 parliament and so on were concerned, as the former

    10 mayor of Brcko, have you taken an interest over the

    11 years in the fate of other political parties, and

    12 members of other political parties, and members of

    13 parliament belonging to other political parties from

    14 Brcko?

    15 A. Yes, but here I cannot -- or, rather, I could

    16 not learn the fate of SDS members.

    17 Q. Of course. I understand why that should be

    18 so, and I'm not going to ask you anything about the

    19 SDS.

    20 Let me just ask you, first of all, about the

    21 first party on Annex B, Mr. Ramic. We can see there

    22 that's the SDP, former Communist Party, 24 members. Of

    23 those who were elected, by my count it's 11 out of the

    24 24 were Bosniaks. First of all, just to make it

    25 absolutely plain, is this right: that the word



  56. 1 "Bosniak" is interchangeable with "Muslim"? Is that

    2 fair in this context?

    3 A. Possibly so, yes.

    4 Q. The figure I've just given you, 11 out of the

    5 24, was that a similar proportion -- if you take the

    6 list of 90 who were put forward for election, would

    7 that proportion of Muslims or Bosniaks have been

    8 reflected as well in the list of 90, approximately

    9 half?

    10 A. I think that it is approximately so, but take

    11 into account the proportion within the population. It

    12 was more in favour of the Bosniak population than what

    13 you have here.

    14 Q. It may be that I'm being not very bright, but

    15 can you just explain that a little more? I don't

    16 understand it entirely. In what way was it more in

    17 favour of the Bosnian population -- the Bosniak

    18 population?

    19 A. Well, if you look at the population of the

    20 municipality of Brcko, and I already mentioned this in

    21 the introduction, there were at least 53 per cent or

    22 perhaps even more. What we have here is a different

    23 ratio. Out of 24 there were 11 Bosniaks. That's not

    24 even 50 per cent.

    25 Q. I understand that, but it's not far off 50



  57. 1 per cent, is it, Mr. Ramic? And it's a small enough

    2 difference to be not very significant, I suggest.

    3 A. Yes. Yes, that's right.

    4 Q. Could you help us about this: Do you know of

    5 the fate of or continued existence of those members of

    6 that list from the SDP who are listed as Bosniak?

    7 A. Yes. Yes. I know the fate of most of them.

    8 Dzevdet Kurtalic, who was president of this party, is

    9 somewhere abroad.

    10 Number 5, Adem Ribic, spent the entirety of

    11 the war in the territory of the municipality of Brcko.

    12 He is from the village of Satorovici, which was not

    13 occupied, so he could remain there.

    14 Then 6, Ibrahim Vajzovic. He is from the

    15 town of Brcko, and I think that he is now in America.

    16 Seven, Hasim Muftic. He is from town. He

    17 was in the camp and was severely mistreated, but since

    18 he's an elderly man, we managed to exchange him. Then

    19 he died during the course of the war, as a consequence

    20 of the abuse in camp.

    21 Number 10 is Sabahet Drpljanin. He lives in

    22 Tuzla right now.

    23 Then number 14, Zekerijah Osmic. He is an MP

    24 in the parliament of that entity which is called

    25 Republika Srpska, and he lives in Tuzla.



  58. 1 Then number 15, Jasminka Salkamovic. She is

    2 somewhere abroad. I don't know where, but she is not

    3 in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    4 Sixteen, Hajrudin Ciric. He is also not in

    5 Bosnia-Herzegovina. I think he's in Germany.

    6 Number 18, Bajro Avdic. He was away

    7 throughout the war. Eighteen, Bajro Avdic. He is in

    8 Sarajevo right now, but during the war he was outside

    9 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    10 Number 19, Nihad Mulalic. Throughout the war

    11 he was out of Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was not there.

    12 Number 21, Mustafa Nukovic. He is in the

    13 territory of the municipality of Brcko, and at present

    14 he is in the multi-ethnic authorities of the future

    15 district of Brcko.

    16 Number 22, Ferid Bijelic; and number 23,

    17 Muhamed Mujkamovic, both of them were abroad throughout

    18 the war. The one under number 22 returned a year ago,

    19 and 23 is still somewhere abroad.

    20 Q. So with one exception, number 7, Hasim

    21 Muftic, all of those are alive and well in some part of

    22 the world?

    23 A. Yes. That is correct. However, you should

    24 bear in mind the fact that they managed to escape

    25 before the aggression against the town of Brcko took



  59. 1 place; that is to say that they were not in Brcko

    2 during the aggression.

    3 Q. I'd like to turn now, please, to the page

    4 which I think is numbered 8 in the top right-hand

    5 corner, Mr. Ramic, the Reformisti Koalicija. You'll

    6 forgive my poor pronunciation of your language.

    7 A. Yes.

    8 Q. Again, a political party that appears to have

    9 won six seats at that election; and of those six, five

    10 are listed as Bosniak. Is that a proper reflection of

    11 the list of 90 that that party advanced in terms of

    12 it's proportion?

    13 A. I'm not competent in terms of explaining the

    14 composition of other parties, but if you want to hear

    15 my opinion, here it goes: This party had problems

    16 because Serbs did not want to join it.

    17 Q. I understand that, but nevertheless, was it

    18 effectively dominated by Bosniaks?

    19 A. They did not have any other composition but

    20 that one. It is only logical.

    21 Q. Of those names listed there, can you, as you

    22 have done with the list of the SDP, assist us as to the

    23 fate of those people?

    24 A. Smajl Kurtalic, number 1, he was abroad. He

    25 was abroad throughout the war.



  60. 1 Enes Pasalic was also abroad, but I think

    2 that he returned approximately two years ago and now

    3 he's in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the territory of the

    4 municipality of Brcko.

    5 Number 3, Amir Muminovic. He was in the

    6 territory of the municipality of Brcko throughout the

    7 war.

    8 Number 4, Goran Trupl. Throughout the war he

    9 was in Brcko, and to the best of our knowledge, he was

    10 one of the commanders on the Serb side. Number 5,

    11 Izudin Karahmetovic, spent the entire war abroad, but

    12 about a year ago he returned. And Number 6, Zlatko

    13 Musanovic, was also abroad throughout the war, but he

    14 returned as well.

    15 Q. Can we now turn, please, to the MBO, Muslim

    16 Bosnian organisation. Again, may we infer from its

    17 name that that was an ethnically based political party,

    18 political grouping?

    19 A. Well, yes. That may be inferred.

    20 Q. And the one name that we have there, Hamo

    21 Jerkovic, can you say anything of what happened to him?

    22 A. Throughout the war, he was in the territory

    23 of the municipality of Brcko. But may I tell you

    24 straightaway that that is a sick man.

    25 Q. Of course, but he's alive and survived the



  61. 1 war?

    2 A. Yes, of course. But again, I repeat, he

    3 escaped, before the aggression, from town.

    4 Q. If I may say so, your knowledge of the people

    5 is reasonably encyclopaedic. Would you be able to

    6 repeat this exercise if you had the additional names of

    7 those who were not elected, from the lists of 90, for

    8 the SDP and the Reform Coalition and the MBO, as to

    9 what happened to them, if we were able to obtain it for

    10 you?

    11 A. You have to know that I was president,

    12 president of the assembly, mayor of the town, and all

    13 these people were my MPs. And of course I knew them

    14 personally rather well, because before that, we worked

    15 together a year and a half before that, and I certainly

    16 know them better than those who were not members of

    17 parliament. So this is what I can say. I could give

    18 such answers for some other people, but not all,

    19 definitely.

    20 Q. Right. Thank you. I'll return to the lists

    21 in due course, if I may, Mr. Ramic. I now want to ask

    22 you some questions about events in relation to the

    23 war.

    24 The war that broke out, effectively between

    25 the Serb population and the Muslim population, in May



  62. 1 1992, wasn't in fact the first, if I can call it, acts

    2 of serious violence of a military kind which had taken

    3 place in Brcko; there were other things that had

    4 happened in the immediate past. Would that be right?

    5 A. You are probably referring to the fate of the

    6 Bosniaks in the history of Bosnia-Herzegovina. If that

    7 is what we are talking about, then I can say to you

    8 that Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina experienced

    9 similar genocides -- that's what I call them -- similar

    10 suffering in the past. There was no case of the

    11 reverse. History knows of no such example, that is to

    12 say that the Serbs ever suffered at the hands of the

    13 Bosniaks, throughout history.

    14 Q. I was rather thinking of an incident in 1991

    15 when an ammunition train -- there was an attempt on an

    16 ammunition train by Croatian elements, an attempt to

    17 blow it up. That's what I was referring to. Do you

    18 recall that incident?

    19 A. I don't know which incident you are referring

    20 to. I do not believe that that was of any

    21 significance; otherwise I would have remembered it.

    22 Q. Is it also right that in March or April of

    23 1992, a soldier in the uniform of the HVO was killed in

    24 Brcko, near to the SUP building?

    25 A. Yes, that did happen, perhaps two months



  63. 1 before the war. As far as I can remember, that man was

    2 not in an HVO uniform. I'm sure that he could not have

    3 had HVO insignia; that's for sure. But may I say

    4 immediately that he was killed by a man from the

    5 then-army; that is to say from the Brcko garrison.

    6 Q. Can I now ask you, please, you've given some

    7 indication of the military buildup on the Serbian side,

    8 but is this not also right: that there were those

    9 elements on the Muslim side who were also engaged in

    10 procuring weapons for a future conflict at about that

    11 time?

    12 A. I must admit that there were some people who

    13 illegally acquired weapons without official

    14 permission. However, you should know that at that

    15 time, there were some very difficult situations of

    16 aggression and bloodshed which all stemmed from the

    17 attacks by the army and the SDS; there were never any

    18 incidents the other way around. And it is quite

    19 understandable that some people, in fear, tried to

    20 obtain weapons for self-defence.

    21 Q. It was rather more than that, wasn't it,

    22 Mr. Ramic? There was a significant amount of attempts

    23 to procure military weapons, to arm militias, wasn't

    24 there?

    25 A. We have to take facts into account, and the



  64. 1 fact is that I, as mayor of Brcko, received direct

    2 information from the chief of police that the army was

    3 caught deploying weapons in Serb villages with army

    4 trucks, and we never received any such information the

    5 other way around, of providing weapons the other way

    6 around, never.

    7 Q. What about the Croatian Community? Were they

    8 arming themselves?

    9 A. I think that they behaved in a similar way,

    10 and that individuals probably procured weapons in order

    11 to defend themselves.

    12 Q. I'd like to ask you, please, about the callup

    13 of reservists to the former JNA. It's right, isn't it,

    14 that that callup was issued to all citizens regardless

    15 of their ethnic background?

    16 A. You are probably referring to the summer of

    17 1991. That is correct. However, I'd like to add one

    18 more thing to that, and that is that these reservists

    19 were called up with the intention of sending them to

    20 war in Croatia, against Croatia, and that is not what

    21 the people wanted. After that, when the people

    22 rebelled against this -- I have to add this -- the army

    23 no longer called up reservists from other ethnic

    24 groups, but Serbs exclusively, and the army turned into

    25 a uni-ethnic force.



  65. 1 Q. Well, isn't it right, in fact, that the

    2 principal reason why people from the Muslim community

    3 didn't answer the summons was that they were encouraged

    4 not to do so by the leader of your party, Alija

    5 Izetbegovic?

    6 A. I did not understand this. Who did

    7 Mr. Izetbegovic support?

    8 Q. It may be that I'm wrong, but did he not make

    9 a call for people to refuse the summons for callup?

    10 Wasn't that why Muslims in general refused to obey the

    11 summons?

    12 A. I shall admit quite frankly that I do not

    13 recall that call, but I know full well that Muslims and

    14 Croats did not want to respond to callups as reservists

    15 because these people were sent to the front line in

    16 Croatia, to wage war against Croatia, and they didn't

    17 want to do that. That was the reason.

    18 Q. You've mentioned the existence of the

    19 garrison commander with whom you had dealings. What

    20 was the name of that gentleman?

    21 A. His name was Pavle Milinkovic, and he was a

    22 lieutenant colonel.

    23 Q. And was it through his offices that you were

    24 able to establish the mixed patrols?

    25 A. Mixed patrols existed throughout



  66. 1 Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Brcko was no exception.

    2 Q. Yes. Perhaps you could just answer the

    3 question, please, Mr. Ramic: Was it through the

    4 garrison commander that you organised the patrols?

    5 A. If you are referring to patrols in town,

    6 patrols in town, yes. But patrols outside town he did

    7 on his own. That is to say that the city was

    8 surrounded by army checkpoints.

    9 Q. And for how long or until what date did those

    10 patrols continue to be carried out?

    11 A. Well, they were carried out formally until

    12 the very beginning of the war; that is to say, the 1st

    13 of May. However, during the last month -- that is to

    14 say, throughout April 1992 -- Serb policemen left these

    15 mixed patrols. They didn't want to be on them.

    16 Q. I'd like now just to turn, if we may, please,

    17 to the talks which took place over the division of

    18 Brcko with other political parties. Is this right,

    19 that those continued, really, right up until the very

    20 last minute?

    21 A. Yes, one may say so. However, I must add

    22 that this was exclusively at my insistence.

    23 Q. That's very commendable, that you should have

    24 continued to try and talk as long as possible. I don't

    25 want to go into the rights and wrongs of the argument,



  67. 1 but there came a time, did there not, when the SDS was

    2 proving itself intransigent as to its position, and you

    3 and your colleagues decided to give in to some or all

    4 of their demands? Is that right?

    5 A. They presented that kind of an ultimatum to

    6 us, and they threatened that they would resort to force

    7 if we did not meet their demands.

    8 Q. And those were essentially demands which --

    9 again, I don't want to debate the rights and wrongs of

    10 them, but the demands were designed to give the Serbs a

    11 substantial part of Brcko, as it were, for their own?

    12 A. They wanted to do something that had already

    13 been witnessed in other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina,

    14 and that is to say, to establish territories under

    15 their own authority. I made an offer to them that we

    16 call the entire municipality of Brcko "the Serb

    17 municipality of Brcko", if that's what they wanted.

    18 However, that was not what they wanted. They wanted

    19 something in which they would be the only

    20 participants.

    21 Q. You, I suspect in common with a lot of your

    22 colleagues, became sufficiently concerned that you sent

    23 members of your family away from Brcko. Was that

    24 something which was generally the case in the SDA

    25 throughout its membership, or was it confined to



  68. 1 certain elements?

    2 A. No, no, that could not be linked to members

    3 of the SDA. This was not done as a planned exercise.

    4 People feared for their families, and it turned into an

    5 epidemic at the very end. One cannot say that this was

    6 a planned exercise.

    7 Q. Can you help me about this: What was the

    8 membership, the number of the members of your party,

    9 immediately before the war broke out in Brcko and the

    10 surrounding area, for which it was responsible?

    11 A. Well, we estimate -- of course these are

    12 approximate data, but we estimate that we had

    13 approximately -- that is to say, a large number of

    14 members or sympathisers.

    15 Q. Mr. Ramic, one politician's idea of "large"

    16 can be different from another's. When you say "large,"

    17 how many do you mean? In round terms; I don't want the

    18 exact number. Are we talking 1.000, 10.000, 20.000?

    19 A. Brcko, the town of Brcko was of mixed

    20 composition; that is to say, in the town itself, we

    21 had -- these are approximate figures, once again --

    22 perhaps 10.000 members, these supporters and their

    23 families.

    24 Q. And certainly in my country, political

    25 parties tend to try and assess the memberships of other



  69. 1 parties. Did you carry out such an exercise in

    2 relation to your -- if I may call it your political

    3 opponents, and try to assess how many members they'd

    4 got?

    5 A. Yes, we did make assessments of that kind,

    6 and let me tell you at the outset that they were to the

    7 advantage of other parties. And after the elections,

    8 we succeeded in having a cross-section, a breakdown of

    9 these. And looking at the electoral results from all

    10 the electoral points, by finding the number of votes

    11 for a particular party and the number of members of the

    12 local population, we were able to ascertain that for

    13 the SDS and for the HDZ, between 80 to 90 per cent of

    14 the local ethnic population voted. We could say that

    15 they were their members and supporters.

    16 Q. What about the Social Democratic Party, which

    17 wasn't ethnically based? What sort of membership did

    18 it have? Did you assess that?

    19 A. Yes. It was of a mixed composition. And

    20 related to a question you asked a moment ago, let me

    21 say that in our estimates, we established that for the

    22 votes in favour of the Social Democratic Party, these

    23 votes came predominantly from the Bosniak members; that

    24 is to say, 80 per cent of their votes came from the

    25 Bosniak electorate.



  70. 1 Q. And what about the Reform Coalition? From

    2 where did it draw its votes, and were you able to

    3 assess its membership?

    4 A. They were of a similar composition to that of

    5 the party mentioned a moment ago, the Socialist

    6 Democratic Party. And in the same way, and that is a

    7 well-established fact, that the majority of votes came

    8 to them from voters from the Bosniak ethnic group.

    9 Q. Mr. Ramic, thank you, I'm finished with those

    10 for the moment again.

    11 Is this right, that at one stage, probably in

    12 the immediate run-up to the outbreak of fighting, you

    13 found yourself being followed by somebody? Do you

    14 recall that?

    15 A. Yes, I do.

    16 Q. Were you able to identify either who they

    17 were or from what organisation those people were?

    18 A. No, I wasn't able to determine that, but one

    19 could only conclude who they were.

    20 Q. Did there come a time, in due course, when

    21 the town itself seemed to be deserted?

    22 A. Only at the time when the bridges were blown

    23 up and when general chaos reigned. Then due to the

    24 population fleeing, the town was semi-deserted.

    25 Q. So of the -- if we can just get an idea of



  71. 1 this: The original population in 1991 of 87.000 or so,

    2 by the time war broke out, how many of those remained?

    3 A. Do you mean the overall population or only

    4 the Bosniaks?

    5 Q. The overall population, Mr. Ramic, please.

    6 A. Well, this is a rough estimate, I haven't got

    7 exact figures, but I can say that in town at that time,

    8 about 10.000 people remained.

    9 Q. What proportion of that would have been

    10 Bosniak?

    11 A. Well, my estimate is that there were about

    12 3.000 to 4.000 Bosniaks of that number. Let's say

    13 3.000, thereabouts.

    14 Q. Where had most people gone? Had they gone

    15 further into the central part of Bosnia-Herzegovina, or

    16 gone abroad, or gone to Croatia, or where did most

    17 people go?

    18 Q. As soon as the bridges were destroyed, let me

    19 say in a few words that, as I said, there was a general

    20 disturbance. The people were frightened. Most of them

    21 started to flee from the town.

    22 A situation of this kind lasted -- that was

    23 the situation on the 30th and on the 1st of May. So

    24 two days was sufficient time for people who wanted to

    25 leave town to do so, and that was when the population



  72. 1 fled.

    2 Most of them went to the south, to the area

    3 where the army had not taken over power, and from there

    4 the people then started leaving, for the most part,

    5 abroad.

    6 Q. I'd like now just to turn briefly to the

    7 incident where you were at the television station and

    8 were trying to make some sort of broadcast. Is this

    9 right: that you were -- in fact, there was a

    10 technician there, who came to you and told that you

    11 there was a telephone call for you and that you were

    12 urgently required in a particular part of Brcko? Do

    13 you recall that?

    14 A. Yes, I remember that.

    15 Q. You hadn't haven't, in fact, been detained or

    16 imprisoned or anything like that immediately before the

    17 television broadcast?

    18 A. The aim of the garrison commander was that I

    19 should prevail upon the people of Brcko to calm down so

    20 that he enter the town after that, because he was, in

    21 fact, afraid of the citizens' reactions. It is for

    22 that reason that I was to have launched that appeal.

    23 Quite obviously he had the intention, and I

    24 saw this straightaway, as soon as I was given an escort

    25 of two armoured vehicles, because there was no need for



  73. 1 these armoured vehicles. There had been no incidents

    2 in town anywhere at this time, so this wasn't

    3 necessary, and least of all did he need to protect me

    4 from my own citizens. Why should he protect me with

    5 two armoured vehicles?

    6 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Mr. Ramic, will

    7 you please look at the Judges when you give your

    8 answers? You are now -- you have the right to say

    9 whatever you like, but I should like you to look at the

    10 Judges when you are answering the question. Thank you

    11 very much.

    12 A. I apologise, Your Honours.

    13 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Well, it's very

    14 simple. I think we're going to have our second break

    15 now. So we shall now make a quarter of an hour break.

    16 --- Recess taken at 5.11 p.m.

    17 --- On resuming at 5.27 p.m.

    18 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] We shall resume

    19 now and work until 6.00. Will the accused be brought

    20 in, please?

    21 [The accused entered court]

    22 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Mr. Greaves,

    23 the floor is yours.

    24 MR. GREAVES: Thank you very much, Your

    25 Honour.



  74. 1 Q. Mr. Ramic, could I ask you now, please, to

    2 look at the plan of the town of Brcko? If you could

    3 just quickly indicate to us, please, so that we

    4 understand what is involved, when you refer to "free

    5 Brcko", what area of Brcko to you mean and could you

    6 indicated by pointing with the pointer on the map,

    7 please?

    8 A. It's this part here, this part of Brcko

    9 [indicates], the southern/south-easterly part. Could

    10 you move the map a little bit? No, this area. You

    11 can't see that part of town.

    12 Q. So you've indicated the area which is known

    13 as Klanac; is that right?

    14 A. No, not Klanac. Klanac wasn't the free part

    15 of town. Klanac was under the attack of the

    16 aggression.

    17 Q. Thank you. Could I now ask you to look at

    18 the larger map which has got -- could I ask you to

    19 look, please, first of all, at Brcko, and then just a

    20 little to the south of Brcko, a town called Celic.

    21 Could you indicate that on the map, please?

    22 A. Here it is [indicates].

    23 Q. Can you help us about Celic? Was that a town

    24 which had a Muslim majority before the war?

    25 A. Yes. It was a 100 per cent Muslim



  75. 1 settlement.

    2 Q. Did Celic remain, so to speak, behind Muslim

    3 lines throughout the conflict?

    4 A. It was precisely through the Celic area that

    5 the front line passed.

    6 Q. Through the area, but did the town itself,

    7 did it remain behind and under the control of Muslim

    8 authorities?

    9 A. Most of it, yes.

    10 Q. Thank you. I'm looking for it but I can't

    11 see it, but can you indicate: Is Brezovo Polje shown

    12 on this map?

    13 A. I'll show you. Brezovo Polje is here

    14 [indicates].

    15 Q. Yes. Just in a little small corner of what I

    16 think is Serbian, now Federal Republic of Yugoslav

    17 territory; is that right?

    18 A. No. No. It is the territory of

    19 Bosnia-Herzegovina but the area called the Republika

    20 Srpska.

    21 Q. Yes. What I meant is that just to the north

    22 of the river there there's a small tongue of what looks

    23 like territory of the neighbouring country, the FRY.

    24 It's just by that, is it?

    25 A. Yes, that's it.



  76. 1 Q. Was that somewhere that had a Muslim majority

    2 before the war?

    3 A. Yes, there was.

    4 Q. What was the proportion of the majority

    5 there?

    6 A. Well, Brezovo Polje itself has two parts to

    7 it, the Brezovo Polje village and the central region.

    8 The central region was inhabited by Bosniak Muslims,

    9 and the Brezovo Polje village inhabited by Serbs.

    10 Taken together, I would say that the ratio, that is to

    11 say not broader area, but that it was a 60/40 ratio in

    12 favour of the Muslim Bosniaks.

    13 Q. Can you now indicate the town of Razljevo,

    14 which I think is between Brcko and Bijeljlha?

    15 A. Razljevo.

    16 Q. You have to forgive me. My pronunciation is

    17 not perfect.

    18 A. Here [indicates]. Here it is [indicates].

    19 Q. Thank you. What was the ethnic make-up of

    20 that town before the war?

    21 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Mr. Greaves,

    22 could you please explain the reason behind these

    23 questions, because we're -- and perhaps if you could

    24 speed it up a little bit, we would be grateful.

    25 MR. GREAVES: These are towns to which people



  77. 1 were sent from detention facilities in Brcko, and they

    2 have been mentioned as having been so.

    3 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] I didn't get

    4 that during the examination-in-chief, but will you

    5 please try to focus again on the examination-in-chief,

    6 please.

    7 MR. GREAVES:

    8 Q. Thank you very much, Mr. Ramic. We can put

    9 the map away, please.

    10 If we can turn now, please, to the lists that

    11 were prepared, and in the first instance to the one

    12 marked H, please.

    13 This is the list, which you and your brother

    14 prepared, of those who had been involved in political

    15 life and were killed. Is it your evidence that all of

    16 them were killed on the first day of the conflict?

    17 A. I don't know that for sure, but they were

    18 killed on the first days of the conflict. Let's say in

    19 the first ten days.

    20 Q. From whom, in general, did you get the

    21 information which enabled you to say, "This person is

    22 dead. That person is dead"?

    23 A. Here, of course, I cannot give that kind of

    24 information, that is to say that I saw the killings or

    25 that I saw anybody dead. All the information was



  78. 1 gained from witnesses, eyewitnesses, people who were on

    2 the spot or who had seen the dead bodies; or the

    3 family, quite simply, up until the present day, does

    4 not know where their members are, and I can explain to

    5 you if you want to go through it.

    6 Q. Well, let's just take an example, if we may,

    7 and look at the quality of your information. Look at

    8 number 14, if you would be so kind, please: Salih

    9 Hibeljic. His nickname, Djaja; would that be right?

    10 A. Yes, that's right.

    11 Q. What did you hear about him, and from whom

    12 did you hear it?

    13 A. Well, I heard that he had disappeared in the

    14 first days of the war. And according to my

    15 information, up until the very end of the war, I never

    16 heard anything of him, as to his being alive.

    17 Q. Just describe him to us. He was one of your

    18 members of parliament, wasn't he?

    19 A. Yes, he was, yes. He wasn't a member of

    20 parliament. He was on the list of members. That is to

    21 say, he was a man -- he was a butcher by profession.

    22 He lived in a part of town that we referred to as

    23 Ciganluk, or Djermanovica Sokak. He was a member in

    24 the municipal parliament. He was an elderly man, about

    25 50 years old. As far as I remember, he had a small



  79. 1 mustachio.

    2 Q. You say he wasn't a member of parliament, but

    3 I have the name "Salih Hibeljic" listed as Number 22 on

    4 the list of SDA members, so are you entirely accurate

    5 about that, Mr. Ramic?

    6 A. He was on the list of those names, with those

    7 names, but he did not take part in the work of the

    8 parliament. He gave up his seat to the next one on the

    9 list.

    10 MR. GREAVES: If Your Honour would just give

    11 me a moment, please.

    12 Q. Would it surprise you to learn that he is

    13 alive and well and living in Begovaca?

    14 A. It wouldn't surprise me. Why should it? He

    15 was, throughout the time, listed as missing, and as you

    16 can see, I believed until this day that he was missing

    17 and that he had been killed. But I am, of course,

    18 happy to learn that he is alive.

    19 Q. You see, your list is headed "Killed." Are

    20 there any other names which are in fact simply missing,

    21 and you don't actually know if they have been killed,

    22 on that list of 39, Mr. Ramic?

    23 A. I'm looking through the list to check.

    24 I think that all these people were killed.

    25 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] I suppose that



  80. 1 you have an element which says that these people are

    2 alive? If you have some information about that,

    3 whichever the judicial system, I believe that the

    4 Judges are entitled to have this. This is called the

    5 list of the killed. We are very happy, of course, to

    6 hear that this man is alive, and I believe that we all

    7 share that. But I hope that you have a certificate, a

    8 letter, a photograph, a document, or something to

    9 substantiate this information. Do you?

    10 MR. GREAVES: The point of the question is

    11 this, Your Honour, if I may explain it to you. The

    12 list is headed "Killed" --

    13 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Yes. I believe

    14 this merits explanation.

    15 MR. GREAVES: The list is headed "Killed,"

    16 and the implication of the word "Killed" is -- and of

    17 his evidence is "I have information that they were

    18 killed." What he has now said is, throughout, in

    19 relation to Salih Hibeljic, he was listed as missing.

    20 There is, with respect, a considerable difference

    21 between the two, and what he has purported to say by

    22 this list is that these were all killed. The question

    23 I asked of him was, is there anybody else who was

    24 simply listed as missing, so therefore he cannot affirm

    25 that they were killed? And what I'm questioning is the



  81. 1 reliability of this list.

    2 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Your previous

    3 question, which caused my concern -- I did understand

    4 the last question, but you have modified your

    5 presentation, and of course you are bringing the

    6 credibility of this witness into question, because you

    7 submitted this list of the killed persons to him and

    8 are trying to check it. And I congratulate you, that

    9 you really have the right to question his credibility

    10 if he says that all these persons were killed.

    11 But we now have -- you said, "Would you be

    12 surprised to hear that this person was alive?" Now, I

    13 allow myself to tell you that this was practically an

    14 affirmative question, not a hypothesis. It simply

    15 sounded to me that, by your question, when you said,

    16 "Would you be surprised to hear that this person is

    17 alive," I expected you to say, "Here; I am giving you

    18 the proof that that this person is alive."

    19 If not, then we have one thesis which is of

    20 the accused, and another one which comes from the

    21 witness, and that is not enough. And in the

    22 cross-examination, I'm giving you here a sample of

    23 cross-examination in common law, but of course I do it

    24 with all humility, but I believe that even if Judges do

    25 not have the right of investigation, as in some other



  82. 1 systems, I should like, with all due respect, to ask

    2 you that when you formulate such a question, you say,

    3 "Would you be surprised to hear that this person is

    4 alive?" I would expect you to add, "Would you be

    5 surprised to learn that I," for instance, "have a

    6 certificate that he is living in such-and-such a town?"

    7 for instance.

    8 MR. GREAVES: Well, I'm not allowed to give

    9 evidence, and I'm not going to give evidence. We are

    10 in a position to call evidence as to the existence and

    11 continued life of this gentleman, not in the form of a

    12 certificate, but in the form of somebody who has met

    13 him and seen him.

    14 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Yes, I

    15 understand that. I understand very well, Mr. Greaves.

    16 But I needed simply a more complete answer, and now

    17 things become much clearer for the Judges; that is, we

    18 have a witness who should have perhaps exercised much

    19 more caution in saying that such-and-such persons are

    20 killed and such-and-such are missing, perhaps. But we

    21 also have the right to ask the Defence to produce some

    22 elements to support or not, at least to give us some

    23 proof, to show us how they know that a particular

    24 person is still among the living.

    25 Thank you very much. That is what I was



  83. 1 trying to tell you.

    2 MR. GREAVES: If I could perhaps remind Your

    3 Honour, we have already had evidence from a Prosecution

    4 witness that he's alive.

    5 If I might perhaps remind Your Honour that a

    6 few days ago, we had evidence from a Prosecution

    7 witness that this man was alive.

    8 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] I congratulate

    9 you on your good memory and your vigilance, really; and

    10 that following that, we shall take note of that,

    11 Mr. Greaves. You may proceed.

    12 MR. GREAVES: Thank you.

    13 Q. Mr. Ramic, I would like to go through the

    14 lists with you very quickly and ask you some questions

    15 about each of the names, so that we can just see how it

    16 is that you compiled it. Confine your answers, if at

    17 all possible, to one or two words, if you can explain

    18 it.

    19 First of all, Midhat Sabanovic; from whom did

    20 you hear that he had died?

    21 A. I heard that from people who -- that is to

    22 say that occurred in May 1992. I can't tell you the

    23 exact date, but let us say that it was the second half

    24 of May, and it was a person killed with three other

    25 people, together with three other people, in a house in



  84. 1 a street -- I think the name is Djindic, and I can tell

    2 you the names of the other three individuals who were

    3 killed together with that person. And I got the

    4 information from Bosniaks who were there to take out

    5 the bodies of the people killed.

    6 Q. And killed in their own home, or in some

    7 other place?

    8 A. They were killed in a house in town, in

    9 Brcko, the same day that two of them were taken off to

    10 the Luka camp, and so, as far as I was told, were

    11 allowed to go home to fetch some things.

    12 Q. Do you know who killed him?

    13 A. A name was mentioned, a man by the name of

    14 Kosto or Kostic. That name was mentioned as being the

    15 name of the killer.

    16 Q. I'm not going to ask you about the second

    17 name, because we've had a lot of evidence about him.

    18 Number 3, Husein Kaknjo; from whom did you hear that he

    19 had been killed?

    20 A. Husein Kaknjo was also killed in the

    21 immediate vicinity, and people saw this, near the

    22 central mosque, called the White Mosque, in the centre

    23 of Brcko, together with several other people.

    24 Q. Can you put a date on it?

    25 A. I couldn't tell you dates, because we



  85. 1 received information -- of course this information

    2 always came a little late, but it did occur in May.

    3 Q. And do you know who it was who killed him?

    4 A. No, I don't know who killed him. He was

    5 killed by people who came from Bijeljina.

    6 Q. Number 4, Smail Ribic; from whom did you hear

    7 that he had been killed?

    8 A. Smail Ribic was killed in the Luka camp. I

    9 heard this from some people, detainees who were there,

    10 camp inmates, and they watched it. I'm not sure at

    11 this point whether it was the accused, the accused who

    12 tortured him and took him out. As you know, as in

    13 similar cases, shots were heard, and he never appeared

    14 again.

    15 Q. I'm not going to ask you about number 5,

    16 because we have evidence about him. Numbers 6 and 7,

    17 two people called Kartal, both brothers; would that be

    18 right?

    19 A. Yes. They were brothers.

    20 Q. From whom did you hear that they had died?

    21 A. Once again, I heard this from people who

    22 later on came -- that is to say, they were either

    23 exchanged or they escaped later on, so with a one-month

    24 delay.

    25 Q. And are you able to say when it was the



  86. 1 Kartal brothers were killed?

    2 A. I don't have any exact information as to

    3 that, but they were killed in the first -- perhaps two

    4 or three months.

    5 Q. And do you know who killed them?

    6 A. No, I don't know that.

    7 Q. Armin Dzaferovic?

    8 A. Dzaferovic, yes.

    9 Q. From whom did you hear that that person had

    10 been killed?

    11 A. I heard that from his father and his mother,

    12 because he is neighbour of mine. It was a young man.

    13 He was a member of the youth organisation of the SDA.

    14 I didn't hear any details from them, but they do

    15 believe -- his mother and father do believe that he was

    16 killed.

    17 Q. Just while we're discussing the question of

    18 the Muslim youth organisation, can you just explain a

    19 little to Their Honours the function that that

    20 organisation played within the SDA?

    21 A. Well, it was the usual kind of youth

    22 organisation; that is to say, an organisation rallying

    23 young people into the SDA membership. And in that

    24 sense, of course it had its specific interests, the

    25 interests of the young population.



  87. 1 Q. So the Muslim youth association would

    2 actively canvass for votes from those -- the young

    3 voters and actively canvass to get new members to join

    4 up; is that right?

    5 A. That organisation was developed after the

    6 elections. It could not have had any great influence

    7 on the elections themselves, so when we're speaking

    8 about votes, they couldn't, in fact, make any

    9 contribution to the voting. But by having members

    10 amongst the younger population, yes, they could.

    11 Q. Did you receive any information as to who had

    12 killed that person?

    13 A. According to the information we received, he

    14 was a member of a group of young people, and the next

    15 numbers, 9 and 10, were also these young people. It

    16 was a group of some 30 young people, in fact, who were

    17 killed, and according to our information, they were

    18 killed on the 3rd of May, and the accused took part in

    19 that killing.

    20 Q. You weren't present at the killings of these

    21 people, were you?

    22 A. I wasn't present, but does it not mean enough

    23 to you to have the words of the family or the friends?

    24 When I'm speaking about numbers 9 and 8 along with -- 9

    25 and 10 along with number 8, I have what the parents



  88. 1 said, and they are two brothers, and he received direct

    2 information from the accused. He came to tell him on

    3 the 4th of May that the two of them were killed in

    4 Brcko, in front of the Evrope Cafe. On the 3rd of May

    5 this happened, and he told the father of the victim on

    6 the 4th of May.

    7 Q. So the extent of your knowledge involving the

    8 defendant, the accused, is that he was the bringer of

    9 the news of the death of these people? That's right,

    10 isn't it?

    11 A. It happened quite by chance. He came to

    12 Bjeljina on some business, and in addition to other

    13 things, he bought some meat in a butcher's shop. I

    14 have a statement from the man he took meat from, the

    15 butcher's shop he took the meat from, and that he said

    16 this in the presence of two witnesses. So there are

    17 people who can bear those words of his out.

    18 Q. That wasn't quite the question that I asked.

    19 The extent of your knowledge is this, isn't it: The

    20 accused's involvement in these matters was simply

    21 bringing information to the family? That's right,

    22 isn't it?

    23 A. He gave that information not to the family,

    24 but in the butcher's shop, and he said, "Convey that to

    25 the father," of this person called Husnija Medinic,



  89. 1 that his dead sons are lying in such and such a place.

    2 Q. If you don't want to answer the question,

    3 we'll move on, Mr. Ramic. We've heard evidence about

    4 Irfan Topalcevic, so I won't ask you about him. Irfan

    5 Suljic, from whom did you hear that you had been

    6 killed?

    7 A. Irfan Suljic is my -- a schoolmate of mine.

    8 I know him very well. And I can't, at this point,

    9 remember who brought me the information, but sources as

    10 to the death of these people were not only -- not only

    11 from one source; there were several ways in which we

    12 learnt of this. I learnt about Irfan Suljic's killing

    13 from several people.

    14 Q. Amongst that information, could you put a

    15 date on when it is believed he was killed?

    16 A. Irfan Suljic was also killed on the 3rd, 4th,

    17 or 5th of May; that is to say, within the first three

    18 or four days.

    19 Q. Were you told who it was who killed him?

    20 A. The name wasn't stated, but he was killed

    21 within a larger group of people, and not one killer was

    22 mentioned, but two or three of them were mentioned;

    23 amongst them, the accused.

    24 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Mr. Greaves, we

    25 shall have to adjourn. How much more do you think you



  90. 1 will need for your cross-examination?

    2 MR. GREAVES: I hope about half an hour,

    3 but --

    4 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] Let us hope so,

    5 Mr. Greaves. It is quite true that you are conducting

    6 a proper investigation, finding out names, dates,

    7 places, and everything else, asking those things of the

    8 witnesses. You know that we are already in possession

    9 of some information, so perhaps you could really try to

    10 expedite matters. I'm going to ask you to do that,

    11 really. We have only two rules, as you know. You have

    12 to go along the lines of the examination-in-chief, and,

    13 of course, you have full right to bring into question

    14 the credibility of the witness. That serves justice.

    15 But we have to adjourn now and we shall then resume

    16 tomorrow morning at 10.00.

    17 Is that so, Mr. Registrar?

    18 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Mr. President.

    19 JUDGE JORDA: [Interpretation] So we shall

    20 adjourn until 10.00 tomorrow. The meeting is

    21 adjourned.

    22 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at

    23 6.00 p.m., to be reconvened on Thursday,

    24 the 16th day of September, 1999

    25 at 10.00 a.m.