Page 16459
1 Wednesday, 13 July 2011
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.04 a.m.
6 JUDGE KWON: Good morning, everyone.
7 Mr. Karadzic, please continue your cross-examination.
8 MR. ROBINSON: Excuse me, Mr. President. Before we do that just
9 to finish up on the document we were dealing with yesterday that was
10 placed under seal. First of all, I would like if we could give it a
11 number; and secondly, I wanted to advise the Chamber that I communicated
12 with the provider yesterday to ask them to clarify whether that could be
13 used in public and I'll get back to the Chamber as soon as I have a
14 response from them.
15 JUDGE KWON: That's very kind of you, Mr. Robinson. That's the
16 step I wanted to recommend. Thank you. We'll give the number.
17 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1523 under seal, Your Honours.
18 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Karadzic.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Excellencies.
20 Good morning to all in the courtroom.
21 WITNESS: CHRISTIAN NIELSEN [Resumed]
22 Cross-examination by Mr. Karadzic: [Continued]
23 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. Nielsen.
24 A. [Interpretation] Good morning to you as well.
25 Q. In your report -- or, rather, during the examination-in-chief,
Page 16460
1 you dealt with the question of rewarding people in the police -- or,
2 rather, awards being given to them. Do you agree that the president --
3 or, rather, the person who is conferring a decoration upon someone has to
4 receive a proposal from someone? He cannot know himself who deserves
5 that kind of decoration. So it's every ministry that makes certain
6 proposals regarding their own people; right?
7 A. I agree that the nomination process for that type of decoration
8 or award took place through an internal nomination process in the
9 Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Serbian Republic and that not all of
10 the people who were nominated by the ministry for such awards were
11 persons personally known to the president of the republic.
12 Q. Thank you. Can we briefly look at P2976. Let's see what that
13 proposal looks like. Yes. That is one of the proposals. Do you agree?
14 It's the public security station from Blazuj that is sending this to the
15 ministry -- or, rather to the Ilidza station and then further on. Can we
16 leaf through this? Actually, first of all you see this is a proposal to
17 the -- rather, regarding the reserve police station of Blazuj itself that
18 it should be decorated; right?
19 A. I would agree and I would note that I cite this document in
20 footnote 105 of my report.
21 Q. Thank you. Can we just have a look at the next page and then the
22 one after that, and we're not going to dwell on this document very long.
23 A bit more, please.
24 Further on so that we get to the individual names as they're
25 listed. Gojko Keselj is being proposed here. Thank you.
Page 16461
1 1D3884, can we have that, please. Let's see yet another
2 document, what the proposals sent to the ministry to the grassroots are.
3 Unfortunately, there is no translation, but it's no problem for
4 you; right? Do you agree that it is the chief of the centre of the
5 security services of Sarajevo that is sending this to the ministry and it
6 has to do with proposals for decorations and the signature is
7 Zoran Cvijetic; right?
8 A. That is correct, and I would point out that Zoran Cvijetic is
9 nominating people on the basis of suggestions that he has in turn
10 received from his subordinate public security stations in accordance with
11 the functioning the ministry.
12 Q. Thank you. Can we have the next page. Let us just see who all
13 the nominees are. We don't have to look at each and every elaboration.
14 Here it is, the list. And then after that there's an elaboration
15 for each and every one of them, and that is sent to the ministry. Do you
16 agree? And then the ministry sends it on to the president -- or, rather,
17 to his office for decorations. They send a proposal that has to do with
18 the entire republic; right?
19 A. That is correct, and again, I find it important to note with
20 respect to this page of the document that this entire exercise is being
21 carried out within the Ministry of Internal Affairs pursuant, as we see
22 in the document, to a dispatch issued by the ministry, the seat of the
23 ministry, on the 23rd of October, 1993.
24 Q. Thank you. Can this be admitted? For identification.
25 JUDGE KWON: While there may be no problem with the witness to
Page 16462
1 deal with this, there are a lot of problem with the Prosecution, as well
2 as the Chamber, to follow the line of your examination. Why do you have
3 so many uninterpreted documents, Mr. Karadzic, yet.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, we don't have enough time,
5 Excellency, but we do have quite a few translated ones as well. A great
6 many more have been translated. However, this stemmed from the
7 examination-in-chief, and that is why I wanted to have the witness's view
8 as to these processes, how this is evolving from the very grassroots all
9 the way to the ministry, and then the president receives a compilation,
10 that kind of document, and this is one of the rare documents that hasn't
11 been translated. We have lots that have been translated.
12 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Ms. Sutherland. I noted you rose.
13 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, I was to make the very point that
14 you made. How can we deal with this properly and -- when we don't have a
15 translation. It's an eight-page document.
16 JUDGE KWON: It's concerning, but -- very well. We'll mark this
17 for identification.
18 THE REGISTRAR: As MFI D1524, Your Honours.
19 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
20 Q. Now I'd like us to focus on the period of the war, how things
21 developed during the war. Could we now have 1D3841. We do have a
22 translation. It's coming. But you can read this, can you not? What
23 does it say here? The deputy minister of the interior. That is what
24 Mandic was far back as April. In paragraph 1 he says due to a major
25 escalation of terrorism, violence, and looting in territories that are
Page 16463
1 under the control of the MUP of the Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina
2 it is necessary to organise patrols consisting of MUP employees of the
3 Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the reserve MUP of the
4 Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and that vehicles should be seized
5 from persons who don't have proper documents for these vehicles and that
6 the crime prevention service should take urgent measures, et cetera, do
7 you agree that already in April, on the 19th of April, the escalation of
8 terrorism, violence and looting was recorded?
9 A. I confirm that that is what the document states.
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. Can this be admitted?
11 Has the translation arrived.
12 JUDGE KWON: No. I don't think we have a translation, according
13 to the e-court.
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. We'll wait for the
15 translation.
16 Can we have a look at --
17 JUDGE KWON: Bear that in mind that at certain point in time the
18 Chamber may order you not to use the untranslated documents. We'll mark
19 it for identification.
20 THE REGISTRAR: As MFI 1525.
21 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Robinson.
22 MR. ROBINSON: Mr. President, if I can just give you a little bit
23 more explanation about why we have untranslated documents. The fact of
24 the matter is that when the witness is being prepared for
25 cross-examination, the case managers and Mr. Sladojevic accumulate a lot
Page 16464
1 of documents and send them for translation and almost all of them are
2 translated. However, Dr. Karadzic himself locates documents at the last
3 minute based upon either the direct examination or other information that
4 he's receiving in the course of his own preparation for these
5 cross-examinations, and as a result those are the documents that are not
6 translated. And that's why we continue to have untranslated documents
7 even though we've improved our procedures quite a bit. But nevertheless
8 there are documents that come to his attention or he locates at the last
9 minute, and those are the ones that are not translated. So that's
10 exactly the situation.
11 JUDGE KWON: There may come a time to deal with that issue
12 more -- in a more comprehensive way, but let's proceed for the moment.
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This translation has arrived. If
14 you wish, we can have it placed on the ELMO.
15 JUDGE KWON: Very well. Let's proceed. Let's -- we take your
16 word. Then we'll admit this. Give the number. Did we give the number?
17 THE REGISTRAR: MFI 1525, Your Honours.
18 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
19 Q. Can we have a look at D404. Do you agree that on the 15th of
20 April of 1992, Stanisic issued an order for persons who commit looting,
21 appropriation of other people's property and other illegal acts should be
22 identified and subjected to the most rigorous measures, including arrest
23 and detention. So looting had already started, but the MUP had also
24 started taking rigorous measures. Do you agree?
25 A. I agree that as of the middle of April 1992, as we see in this
Page 16465
1 order, Minister Mico Stanisic of internal affairs was aware of the
2 problem of looting and large-scale theft and that he issued this and
3 other orders trying to address that issue. It was an issue that the
4 ministry came back to in a recurring fashion throughout 1992.
5 Q. Thank you. 65 ter 18393. Could we have that, please. This is
6 from the month of June. This is a security assessment for the entire
7 republic; right?
8 A. That is correct, and I cite this document in my report. It is in
9 footnote 376.
10 Q. Thank you. You're very kind. Can we look at English page 7 --
11 or Serbian page 7, English page 9.
12 Do you agree this has to do with Semberija and Majevica, and then
13 it says -- can we have 10 in English? It says that in Bosanski Samac,
14 Orasje and Brcko and also in Kalesija, Zivinice and Kladanj, there is a
15 certain number of mercenaries from Sandzak and Croatia and Zengas, ZNGs,
16 you know who they are, the National Guards Corps of Croatia, it's a
17 police military formation; right?
18 A. I confirm that that is what the document states. I would just
19 add that as I note in paragraph 264 of my own report, it is quite
20 plausible that this report that we have in front of us was the end result
21 of a 25 May 1992 RS government request for such a report by the ministry,
22 and is therefore an indication that the ministry was functioning properly
23 as part of the RS government.
24 Q. Thank you. We see here that new paramilitary formations have
25 been established by the Croatian Army and they were transferred to the
Page 16466
1 territory of BiH, and also, retaliatory measures were taken.
2 Can we look at page 8 in Serbian and 11 in English.
3 The third line in Serbian says that the Muslim TO assesses that
4 Serbian TO does not have enough forces in this territory to hold the
5 liberated territories under control. They are left to their own devices,
6 and they are not under a single command, and therefore they are more
7 oriented towards looting rather than warfare. Is that right? Is that
8 what is registered here?
9 A. That is what it states in the document, yes.
10 Q. Thank you. A bit further down it says in view of the disarming
11 of Muslim extremists after the armed conflicts in Bijeljina, and there is
12 a belief that in Bijeljina, in Janja, there are some infantry weapons
13 that had been hidden; is that right?
14 A. That is also correct.
15 Q. Actually, we needed the next page in English, 12. I beg your
16 pardon. There's a reference to the ZNGs here, the last page in English,
17 HOS, the Red Berets, the Green Berets, and other paramilitary formations.
18 Can we have 14 in English now and 9 in Serbian.
19 The fourth paragraph from the top in Serbian says:
20 "What is also evident are conflicts and the presence of various
21 paramilitary formations, many of which are looting, seizing cars, and
22 performing other crimes violating public peace and order, widely
23 intimidating and terrorising citizens and the like. Sometimes they even
24 attack public security stations?"
25 Have you come across this kind of thing, namely that the police
Page 16467
1 was helpless at the time and that it was even subjected to armed attacks?
2 A. I am aware of the fact that the police was subjected to armed
3 attacks during this period from a variety of sides. In some cases as the
4 police amply document in their own reports, they were extensively
5 involved in combat activities with opposing forces from the Muslim and
6 Croat side, and as is also indicated in this and other police reports, on
7 several occasions the Bosnian Serb police in fact came under attack, even
8 in their own police stations from Serb paramilitaries. That, for
9 example, took place in -- I believe, Brcko was one of the places where
10 that occurred in the summer of 1992. I would not, however, characterize
11 the police as helpless as a general observation.
12 Q. Thank you. Have you come across information to the effect that
13 Milan Panic, as prime minister of Yugoslavia, and I called upon the
14 Muslims to return and also that I asked Panic to send me a capable
15 special forces unit to arrest all these paramilitaries?
16 A. I am aware of certainly the arrival of a special unit from the
17 Federal Secretariat for Internal Affairs, I believe, headed by
18 Mr. Mico Davidovic that was tasked with assisting the Serbian Republic in
19 Bosnia and Herzegovina, among other things, with arresting paramilitary
20 formations. I'm also aware of the fact that at some point you in your
21 capacity as the president of the RS called upon Muslims to return to
22 certain areas, and I am aware of the fact that that call created
23 dissatisfaction which was reported by the police among the Crisis Staffs
24 in some municipalities to which those Muslims might return.
25 I am not specifically aware of that taking -- that appeal of
Page 16468
1 yours -- or both appeals of yours taking place in co-ordination with
2 Milan Panic as prime minister.
3 Q. Thank you.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
5 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1526, Your Honours.
7 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
8 Q. Can we have a look at 65 ter 18394. Do you agree that this is a
9 document that was signed by the assistant minister for the prevention of
10 crime? It's a very long title from the social -- times of socialism. It
11 should actually be crime prevention assistant minister; right? So it's
12 Dobro Planojevic. On the 5th of June, he is saying that special
13 attention should be played to finding perpetrators of war crimes,
14 documenting this, arresting such individuals, and so on, and then he's
15 asking for documents, photographs, post-mortems. And he's also saying
16 that as far as the treatment of civilians in war and prisoners of war is
17 concerned, international law should be strictly observed. This was
18 actually a week after I issued that order on paramilitaries and the
19 observance of international law. Do you agree that this person,
20 Planojevic, acted properly?
21 A. You asked a number of questions and I will agree with you a
22 number of times. First of all, I agree with you that police officials,
23 particularly the ones from the old period, were very fond of long titles
24 for their offices. Second of all, I agree with you that this is an
25 important document and that is why I cite it in paragraph 266 of my
Page 16469
1 report, footnote 377, and I agree with you that your reading of the
2 document is accurate and that Dobro Planojevic is indeed asking that the
3 problems to which you refer be addressed and that this be done in
4 accordance with international -- as he calls it, international law of
5 war.
6 Q. Thank you. In the first part he says that there are perpetrators
7 who are police officers, which is unimaginable and cannot be accepted.
8 So he's already noting that some of the police officers have become
9 engaged in the perpetration of criminal offences.
10 A. That is correct. The police at this point were aware of the fact
11 that in some cases police officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
12 were engaged in the perpetration of a various number of criminal
13 offences, including, in some cases, looting, the problem to which we
14 referred a little bit earlier this morning.
15 Q. Thank you.
16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
17 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
18 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1527, Your Honours.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
20 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
21 Q. Can we now look briefly at D477. It's already been admitted into
22 evidence, but let us just remind ourselves what it contains.
23 I don't think that's the document. This one refers to the
24 Red Cross. So D477.
25 You also knew, didn't you, that I issued a blanket permission
Page 16470
1 granting the protection for representatives of the International Red
2 Cross; is that right?
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] But that's not the document that
4 I'm seeking. The one that I need is 65 ter 09243.
5 THE REGISTRAR: It's Exhibit D447, Mr. Karadzic.
6 THE ACCUSED: That's what we have on the -- on the ...
7 Yes, that's the one. We have the translation.
8 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
9 Q. So this is brief analysis of the work to date and basic
10 guidelines for the future work dated 11th of July 1992. Do you agree?
11 You are familiar with this document, aren't you?
12 A. Yes. This is a document that I have collected. It's a document
13 that I cite in the report at paragraph 217, and I cite it extensively
14 throughout my report.
15 Q. Thank you. Can we have English page 15 and Serbian page 16.
16 You see here that despite everything, Stanisic is saying that we
17 have to do our job, because --
18 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters cannot find the paragraph that
19 Mr. Karadzic is reading.
20 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, interpreters couldn't follow. Could
21 you repeat, making reference to the passage.
22 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
23 Q. Second paragraph from the top in the Serbian, and then the next
24 sentence.
25 So you have noted here that Stanisic is reporting that the
Page 16471
1 government, the Assembly, and the Presidency's constantly asking for law
2 and order to be reinstated and to prevent the looting and to provide
3 safety and security for the citizens; right?
4 A. That is correct. That is what the document states, and as this
5 and other documents show, it was a struggle throughout 1992 for law and
6 order to be established on the territory of the Serbian Republic.
7 Q. Thank you. Can we look at Serbian page 20 and English 19, and I
8 would like for you to focus on Planojevic's contribution to this. He is
9 proposing his list of priorities, among which are, the fifth bullet from
10 the top, which reads:
11 "Undertake measures so that our members know exactly what they
12 can expect in the event of their having committing a crime."
13 And then it says, the priority in the process of documenting war
14 crimes is to provide documentation such as an on-site investigation,
15 photographs, expert reports, coroner's report, et cetera.
16 So you have noted all this, haven't you?
17 A. Yes. I note that in my report. And while we're on the subject,
18 I would also note that in footnote 383 of my report, I deal with another
19 RS MUP document on a very similar topic, namely establishing authority
20 and the rule of law on a certain section of the territory of the RS, and
21 I note that in that document, on the last page of the report there were
22 handwritten remarks by you, and I quote, "Keep enforcing order and the
23 rule of law."
24 Q. Thank you. Can we now move to the next page in both languages.
25 Simo Tusevljak says here that criminal reports - that's the end the first
Page 16472
1 paragraph - criminal reports are filed against everyone. In Vlasenica,
2 of the 73 criminal reports, 23 refer to Serbs.
3 Then he says that "our primary task to document war crimes and to
4 file criminal reports in such cases if they are committed by Serbs?"
5 You have also noted that the position within the ministry itself
6 was to document everything; right?
7 A. That is correct. That is what the document states. As I have, I
8 believe, noted in the report, I find it significant here that
9 Simo Tusevljak finds it necessary to emphasise that it is also necessary
10 to document war crimes if they are committed by Serbs. This shows in
11 conjunction with other documents that there were at least some people in
12 the Ministry of Internal Affairs who did not understand that war crimes
13 needed to be documented regardless of who the perpetrators or victims
14 were.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. Can we now briefly look
16 at P1096. This is just a week later, which shows that they were provided
17 this information regularly on a weekly basis. So let's have P1096. Can
18 we have page 2 in both languages.
19 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
20 Q. I would like to draw your attention to the last sentence in the
21 first paragraph where it says that the meeting was also attended by a
22 representative of the Federal Secretariat for Internal Affairs of the
23 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
24 You will remember that that was this Davidovic person who,
25 already in early July, was asked to make an assessment, and you will
Page 16473
1 remember that by the end of July, he made arrests in Zvornik and Brcko,
2 and he was doing also something in Bijeljina. Do you remember that?
3 A. I will have to correct your reading of this document. Number 1
4 refers -- this is not a kind of information report produced on a weekly
5 basis by the ministry at the time. This is, as I noted in the direct
6 examination, actually a report that summarises the findings of the
7 previous document we saw, that is to say on the 17th of July, 1992, the
8 RS Ministry of Internal Affairs issues a report summarising their meeting
9 which was held in Belgrade on the 11th of July, 1992, and as the Court
10 will have seen, and we dealt with it in direct examination, this
11 particular document that we have in front of us now was sent to the
12 president of the Presidency as well as to the president of the government
13 or prime minister of the RS.
14 The second point I would make is that the representative of the
15 Federal Secretariat for Internal Affairs of the Federal Republic of
16 Yugoslavia, who was in attendance at this meeting, was not
17 Mico Davidovic. It was, in fact, Petar Mihajlovic, who was also working
18 at the Federal Secretariat for Internal Affairs and who is mentioned in
19 the report of Mico Davidovic, which I know the Defence produced for the
20 Court's consideration last week.
21 Q. Thank you. Can we have the next page? The last paragraph in the
22 Serbian. It says that there was a lot of discussion about the
23 participation of some paramilitary formations of which almost every
24 single one has no single command, cannot be removed from the territory.
25 Many of them are involved in looting. They are disturbing public law and
Page 16474
1 order, et cetera. So would you agree that this was in preparation for
2 the subsequent action taken by Davidovic?
3 A. I agree that this document can be read in the context of the
4 desire for the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs in Bosnia and
5 Herzegovina to combat paramilitary formations on the territory of the RS
6 with the assistance of the Federal Secretariat for Internal Affairs.
7 Q. Thank you. Can we just move to page 3 in English and 5 in
8 Serbian.
9 Do you agree that in the second paragraph in the Serbian it says
10 that Dobro Planojevic's view were accepted to the effect that the
11 priority in detecting war crimes should be well documented? So second
12 paragraph in the Serbian.
13 A. I agree that this document reiterates almost precisely the
14 wording of the document by Tusevljak that we saw earlier. It is
15 emphasised that war crimes need to be documented even if they are
16 committed by Serbs.
17 Q. Thank you. Can we now have D448. Here we have the letter sent
18 by the government to the Ministry of Justice requesting specific remarks
19 and objections to certain decrees and laws.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we have page 10 in the Serbian,
21 please.
22 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
23 Q. Do you agree that in the third paragraph from the top it reads:
24 "Within the scope of its activities --" page 13 in English.
25 "Within the scope of its activities the ministry and its services should
Page 16475
1 particularly identify how to carry out work in an organised manner
2 towards collecting and processing the data and the documents concerning
3 the crimes and the genocide committed against the civilian population."
4 A. I agree that that is what the document states. I'm glad that you
5 corrected yourself at the last moment there.
6 Q. Thank you. Can we now have 65 ter 11811. All of this pertains
7 to the activities in July. You would agree that there were quite a few
8 activities being carried out in that period in this particular domain?
9 A. Yes, I agree.
10 Q. Thank you. Let's look now -- this is the 17th of July.
11 Mico Stanisic is issuing to all security services centre chiefs, and he
12 says that incidents of looting and war profiteering and other severe
13 crimes that have an effect on the state of security and political
14 situations of significance to the security situation.
15 And then downwards it says that failure to respect this order
16 shall be deemed as a severe dereliction of duty, which means that he is
17 threatening the employees of the MUP with sanctions should they fail to
18 comply.
19 Have you come across this document?
20 A. Yes, I'm quite certain that I cite this document at some point in
21 my report. I can't locate the precise footnote right now, but this
22 entire topic that we are discussing is dealt with at length on pages 75
23 to 82 of my report under the heading, RS MUP and the Rule of Law in the
24 RS.
25 Q. Thank you.
Page 16476
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I believe that this is already in
2 evidence. Am I right?
3 JUDGE KWON: Can we go into private session briefly.
4 [Private session]
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 [Open session]
15 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Karadzic.
16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. Can we now have D1360.
17 Can we please enlarge the paragraph in the middle, the second one from
18 the top.
19 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
20 Q. Do you agree that it has been underlined here that the
21 questionnaire should be filled in in the security services centre by all
22 people regardless of their ethnicity and they are specifically mentioning
23 Muslims, Croats, Serbs and others? This is another order issued by
24 Stanisic that relates to a questionnaire that has to be filled out,
25 particularly when it refers to war crimes and victims of genocide.
Page 16477
1 A. Yes. That is what the document states.
2 Q. I believe you have seen this document; right?
3 A. I note that this is a document without an ERN, and I don't
4 specifically recall seeing this particular document before, but I
5 certainly see that it confirms many of the other documents issued by the
6 RS MUP during this period, which I cite in my report.
7 Q. Thank you. Can we look at the next page so that we can see the
8 signature and the stamp. And attached to the document is a questionnaire
9 form. This is the signature and the stamp. Next page, please, so we
10 that can see the first page of the questionnaire.
11 This is the questionnaire that needs to be filled out by persons
12 regardless of their religion or ethnicity. Thank you.
13 Can we now have 1D3855.
14 Please focus your attention on this document which reads,
15 Banja Luka CSB is sending this document to its subordinate stations.
16 Actually, it's conveying Minister Stanisic's order relating to all
17 members of the MUP who have committed criminal offences, save for
18 political or crimes of thought before, or from the period when the war
19 started, and this information should be provided before the 31st of July.
20 Have you come across this document, which is dated towards the
21 end of July 1992?
22 A. Yes. I cite at least one version of this document in my report.
23 It's a topic that I dealt with also in direct examination, and I confirm
24 that your reading of the document is correct, and the authenticity and
25 content of the document is further confirmed when we note that in the
Page 16478
1 1992 draft annual report of the RS MUP, we see that for the period from
2 April to December 1992, the RS MUP in fact had put - and this is from
3 paragraph 381 of my report - 6.167 police officers at the disposal of the
4 VRS. Most of them reserve police officers. There were a number of
5 police officers who were transferred, both voluntarily and involuntarily,
6 from the police to the VRS in the course of the period from July 1992
7 until the end of the year, many of them for disciplinary reasons.
8 Q. Thank you. Can we please look at the next page. It speaks about
9 the same topics but the language is slightly different. It's more
10 elaborate, and it contains instructions to the subordinate stations. But
11 basically the topic is the same; right? Zupljanin is requesting within
12 the seven days of the receipt of the dispatch a report to be submitted
13 about the measures that were undertaken.
14 A. This is correct. The document is consistent with the fact that
15 the communications and chain of command of the ministry are functioning
16 properly from the centre to the regional level and then from there on
17 down to the municipal level with reporting and orders moving both ways
18 along that chain of command. And the document is further consistent with
19 the phenomenon that persons who were suspected of having committed
20 criminal acts or disciplinary infractions in the police were being
21 transferred to serve in the VRS.
22 Q. Thank you.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted.
24 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
25 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1528, Your Honours.
Page 16479
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we now look at D473 just
2 briefly.
3 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
4 Q. I believe that you're familiar with this document as well. Do
5 you remember this document? This is a summary which was compiled in
6 August after the operation of the federal SUP together with
7 Mr. Davidovic; right?
8 A. That is correct.
9 Q. I'm looking at page 10 in English and 8 in Serbian, please.
10 The last paragraph in the Serbian version, as well as in English,
11 says that the situation in Bijeljina is relatively satisfactory, but in
12 truth it is much worse than at first glance and here a reference is made
13 to myself, to me saying the situation has worsened because some refugees
14 have written upon the invitation by Prime Minister Panic.
15 Would you agree with me that there should be an optimum time
16 conducive to the return of refugees? In other words, that not every
17 moment is suitable for the return of refugees.
18 A. This is another one of the documents that I cite several -- at
19 several points in my report. It's a very important meeting of the
20 ministry -- ministry's leadership in Trebinje in August 1992, and, in
21 fact, I referred to it earlier this morning precisely because of the
22 point you make that it shows there was dissatisfaction in Bijeljina about
23 the return of Muslims to that area.
24 I'm not an expert on refugee issues, so I do not know that I
25 could agree that there is somehow an optimal time conducive to the return
Page 16480
1 of refugees.
2 Q. Thank you. Thirteen in English, 11 in Serbian, please. Bullet
3 point 3. It says that "The internal affairs bodies have been infiltrated
4 by Vidovic whose criminal and otherwise antisocial behaviour defiles the
5 reputation of the MUP ... ," do you agree?
6 And then can we go to English 15, Serbian 12. I'm sure that you
7 have noticed yourself that immediately thereafter an order was issued to
8 disband regional special units; right? That's bullet point 7 where it
9 says that the special units have been involved in some abuses. That's
10 why they have to be disbanded. And it says that the criteria for
11 detachment membership must be made stricter and the appropriate technical
12 equipment must be secured. Do you remember that the centres had their
13 special units and that already in August those special units were
14 disbanded. The reason having been mentioned in bullet point 3 and that
15 is that the bodies of internal affairs were infiltrated by criminals and
16 that there were abuses on their part. Do you agree with all that?
17 A. Once again, you've asked -- or put to me a series of very complex
18 issues. I will do my best to deal with them in the order that you
19 address them.
20 First of all, I agree with you that this is the information
21 contained in the document. I agree, first of all, that the ministry
22 shows awareness as it had already done at the 11 July meeting in Belgrade
23 that there were criminal elements in the police, particularly in the
24 reserve forces, and I would note in paragraph 213 of my report I quote a
25 speech by Mico Stanisic even later in the year, in November 1992, at the
Page 16481
1 22nd Assembly session, where he essentially notes that the police had not
2 only been aware of but, in fact, had, at least implicitly, permitted
3 thieves and criminals, as he called them, to enter the ranks of the
4 police in the early days of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
5 As regards the paramilitary formations -- or, excuse me, the
6 Special Police Units in the RS, this is a topic that I deal with in pages
7 65 to 71 of my report. I agree with you that efforts were made by July
8 and August to shut down or disband a number of these Special Police
9 Units, particularly at the municipal and regional levels. Many of them
10 and their members were in turn integrated either into the Army of the RS
11 or into the centralised RS MUP Special Police Brigade under
12 Milenko Karisik. I would further note that the first months of the war
13 were characterised by a proliferation of Special Police Units. It, at
14 some points, appeared that anyone who had a few guns and a spare uniform
15 was fond of getting a couple of friends together and calling themselves a
16 Special Police Unit. This is something you, yourself, criticised in the
17 Assembly when you noted the need for -- I think you called them little
18 princes or local princes to be put under control and to no longer engage
19 in the operation of such Special Police Units.
20 Lastly, I would note that a number of the Special Police Unit
21 members and, indeed, commanders who were very active from April to
22 August 1992, and who were criticised by some authorities in the RS for
23 improper conduct or callous conduct were, in fact, later promoted in the
24 ministry and indeed received awards from the president of the republic.
25 An example of that phenomenon that I gave in direct testimony is
Page 16482
1 Ljuban Ecim of the CSB Banja Luka Special Unit.
2 Q. However, do you agree with me that we Serbs are prone to smearing
3 other people's names and being spiteful, which is all based on one's own
4 personal interests? That's how we behave. You know us well. Wouldn't
5 you agree with that?
6 A. I don't have those kind of negative stereotypes about the Serbs,
7 but I am aware that you, yourself, in the Assembly on several occasions
8 referred to your dissatisfaction with internal strife in the Serbs -- or
9 among the Serbs and that in particular there was tension between, for
10 example, Serbs from the Sarajevo Romanija region and Serbs from the
11 Krajina region not least about where, for example, the capital of the
12 Serbian Republic should be located.
13 Q. Thank you. Do you agree with me that the main division of Serbs
14 in the Second World War was into Chetniks on the one hand and Partisans
15 on the other or, rather, the proponents of the Soviet revolution on the
16 one hand and the proponents of the monarchy, and that -- that was some
17 sort of a curse that I wanted to eliminate by bringing peace and bringing
18 former Partisans and former Chetniks together?
19 A. Thank you for that question. It allows me to come back to a
20 point that we discussed yesterday.
21 First of all, I agree with you that the main division of Serbs in
22 the Second World War was between Chetniks or Royalists on the one hand,
23 and Partisans on the other, and I agree that you and many of the people
24 who were involved in the development of the ideology of the
25 Serbian Democratic Party - you mentioned yesterday, Milorad Ekmecic, I
Page 16483
1 would mention also Dobrica Cosic - viewed it and have written extensively
2 about what they viewed as the tragedy of the internal division of the
3 Serb Nation between Chetniks and Partisans.
4 As I indicated yesterday, it is clear that, from the point of
5 view of the Serbian Democratic Party, the goal was, as you say, to reach
6 some sort of historical reconciliation between those two tendencies, if
7 we will call them that, in the Serb Nation. However, I would point out
8 that many Serbs, both in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as in Serbia,
9 Montenegro, and Croatia, have argued that the Serbian Democratic Party
10 was much more closely affiliated with the Chetnik tradition than with the
11 Partisan tradition, and that would, to some extent in my opinion as an
12 historian, be borne out by the document that I cite in footnote 597 of my
13 report on page 109, in which the RS MUP describes the SDS as the bearer
14 of activities and means for the liberation of the Serbian nation, and the
15 organs of internal affairs, so to say, first enter into the battle of the
16 Serbian nation for liberation. As we discussed yesterday there was and
17 continued to be in the 1990s, a tendency between the Yugoslav tendency in
18 Serb national ideology and the more narrow Serbian nationalist tendency.
19 Q. Did you know that I am the result of that reconciliation? My
20 father was a Royalist and my mother's family were Communists. Did you
21 know that?
22 A. Yes, I'm familiar with your family's background, and I'm familiar
23 with a number of families that share that background and that were in the
24 SDS.
25 Q. Thank you. Can we now look at D467. We will come back to this
Page 16484
1 segment and when I say this, I mean guarding of detention centres and
2 prisons. Let's now look at this document. I'm sure that you're familiar
3 with it. The date is 10 August. The summer of 1992. Here Mr. Stanisic
4 requests that detention and holding measures shall be applied exclusively
5 within existing regulations in order to avoid and eliminate any abuses.
6 Do you agree with me that it says here that the premises where
7 were people are being held or detained must fulfill basic hygiene and
8 health requirements and the security of collection centres shall be the
9 direct responsibility of the Serbian Army. In other words, collection
10 centres for prisoners of war and that also if they do not have enough men
11 for these duties, it shall therefore be necessary to engage members of
12 the reserve police for these tasks. Have you come across this document,
13 sir?
14 A. I'm not sure that I had this document for review. Again, I note
15 that it doesn't have an ERN number, and I do not immediately recognise it
16 as a document that I have reviewed earlier. I would point out that this
17 document is completely consistent with the concern of Mico Stanisic, as
18 minister of internal affairs, with conditions in detention facilities and
19 prisons at this point in time. As I noted earlier, as of the 11th of
20 July meeting in the summer of 1992, there was an awareness in the RS MUP
21 that conditions in many of those detention facilities were unhygienic and
22 insufficient for the purposes of detention.
23 Q. Thank you. Can we now look at D469. It has an ERN number, and
24 I'm sure you have come across this document in which Mico Stanisic --
25 unless somebody signed on his behalf, which is very possible. In any
Page 16485
1 case, Mico Stanisic mentions for the first time the existence of illegal
2 prisons, and he asks the ministry to be informed immediately of the
3 existence of those potential and official prisons and he wants to know
4 who set them up. Do you agree with that? In the first passage it says:
5 "I hereby repeat the order to all security service centres,
6 public security stations and other organisations to act exclusively
7 accordance with -- in accordance with the law."
8 Do you agree with that?
9 A. Yes. I am familiar with this document, and I agree that that is
10 what the document states.
11 Q. Thank you. Can we now look at D109. Are you familiar with the
12 document issued by the Presidency of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and
13 Herzegovina, which is entitled "We accept, we propose, we shall do."
14 This is a declaration on the position of the Republika Srpska. Are you
15 familiar with the document? Have you ever come across it?
16 A. First, let me just please say that the document we just looked at
17 is a version of that which was actually a version forwarded by
18 Stojan Zupljanin in the Banja Luka region, is cited in paragraph 311 of
19 my report. He forwarded it on the 20th of August.
20 As for the document that we have in front of us, that is not a
21 document that I immediately recognise.
22 Q. You can see, for example, that we say we shall not accept
23 territorial claims by neighbouring countries, if any will accept to form,
24 together with the other two national communities, a community of states
25 of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the existing external borders and so on and
Page 16486
1 so forth, and then it says we shall do, in the penultimate paragraph,
2 where it says, "Any document on selling or giving up of property made
3 under force will be declared null and void and without any legal
4 validity."
5 Do you remember that on the 19th of August, two days prior to
6 this, I issued a document in the form of an order to make null and void
7 all documents possibly signed by anybody in order to either sell or
8 donate municipal property? Do you remember that document?
9 A. No, I'm not familiar with such a document. As regards the 19th
10 of August, in paragraph 310 of my report I note that on that same day you
11 ordered the VRS and the MUP to treat all prisoners in accordance with
12 international norms and to co-operate with all international
13 organisations, which was a reiteration of a presidential order of the 6th
14 of June, 1992.
15 Q. Can we now look at 1D3632.
16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we have a Serbian version?
17 What we see now is two English versions.
18 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
19 Q. Do you agree with me that here somebody from the Bijeljina police
20 made some claims about irregularities? The Ministry of the Interior then
21 set up a commission, and the commission now submits a report. You can
22 see the composition of that commission, and the report is about the
23 allegations that were made.
24 In the second paragraph it says it was concluded that the status
25 of the fleet of vehicles, the depositor of goods and monetary assets, and
Page 16487
1 the communications equipment in the Bijeljina SJB should be ascertained.
2 Are you familiar with this document? Does the document speak
3 about an attempt to clean the police ranks from anybody doing illegal
4 things?
5 A. I am not familiar with this document. I agree that this document
6 shows that a commission had been formed to investigate allegations of
7 impropriety and allegedly criminal action by the employees of the
8 ministry, and in particular, employees of the ministry in the Bijeljina
9 area.
10 Q. Thank you. Can we now look at the last page and the signatures
11 of the commission members.
12 Do you agree that it says here in the second paragraph that
13 following consultation with and approval by Undersecretary Cedo Kljajic,
14 it is hereby established that Dragan Andan made a transgression, and
15 there are also signatures by the three commission members; right?
16 A. Yes, I'm well aware of the ongoing saga of Dragan Andan and the
17 slot machines on the territory of the RS in the summer of 1992. I
18 confirm that this is a commission that was formed and I recognise the
19 first signature being that of Goran Macar, who has also testified at this
20 Tribunal.
21 Q. Thank you.
22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can it be admitted?
23 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
24 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1529, Your Honours.
25 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
Page 16488
1 Q. Before the break I would like to call up 65 ter 5295. We're
2 moving on, and we're now in the month of September. 5295. This is it.
3 Are you familiar with this document? Here, Minister Stanisic sends an
4 order on the 6th of September, and he says, authorised workers of the
5 Republic of Srpska MUP in performing tasks in internal affairs' domain by
6 measures of confiscating objects, items, and so on have to do so
7 exclusively in a way envisaged by the law. Valid confirmations on
8 confiscated items must be issued. That should be enumerated, put in
9 orderly evidence and treated as papers of value. And then in the
10 statement of reasons, it says the reasons mentioned in this order have
11 come out in by now in several cases of registered illegal relations
12 towards confiscated objects and items, which causes great disapproval of
13 damaged [indiscernible] and other citizens. Have you come across this
14 document? And then in bullet point 4, he threatens the perpetrators by
15 sanctions and punishment.
16 A. Yes, I'm very familiar with this document. I collected this
17 document, and I also cited this document in paragraph 279 of my report.
18 It's footnote 392, and I discuss its contents in that paragraph.
19 Q. Thank you.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can it be admitted.
21 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
22 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1530, Your Honours.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And can we now look at D1356 just
24 briefly. D1356. This is a part of my own diary, and the date is
25 14 September 1992. I would like to call up page 5 both in Serbian and in
Page 16489
1 English.
2 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
3 Q. I would like to draw your attention to where Stanisic says that
4 there are over 1.000 criminal reports, and that was on the 14 September
5 1992. There were over 1.000 criminal reports. Do you remember that
6 there was a constant sentiment of dissatisfaction with the lack of
7 efficiency and the nonexistence of a legal system? Requests were made to
8 establish courts that would be able to deal efficiently with such a large
9 number of criminal reports.
10 A. Yes, I'm aware of these sentiments of dissatisfaction with the
11 rudimentary nature of the judiciary system, and I would note that there
12 is a lot of virulent exchanges, "prepucavanja," between Mr. Trbojevic,
13 and Mr. Stanisic, who very much disliked each other. Perhaps that's one
14 of the elements of internal strife that you referred to earlier. With
15 both the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Internal Affairs
16 throughout the period from April to the end of 1992 blaming each other
17 for the problems that were being encountered with the establishment of
18 the rule of law on the territory of the RS.
19 I would just also note that in the very last section of my
20 report, which is a summary of an interview with Mico Stanisic in the
21 newspaper "Javnost" from the 30th of October, 1992, he discusses his own
22 views of this issue as he saw it.
23 Q. Can you now look at the following page in English. Do you agree
24 that the rivalry between the services were a problem for the president of
25 the republic, whoever that may have been, that -- that was quite a burden
Page 16490
1 on state bodies, including the president, who had to be an arbiter
2 between them?
3 A. Certainly in any government when there are strong personalities
4 and differences between ministers, that will create certain challenges
5 for the prime minister, who is the president of the government in which
6 those ministers sit, and for the Presidency that sits above the
7 government. As to how much of a burden that was on the president of the
8 government or on the Presidency, I would defer to your expertise there.
9 Q. Thank you. Let's look what Vice-President Koljevic is asking.
10 He's asking about the confiscated cars, and can a special unit be
11 authorised by the Assembly to go on the ground and make arrests? And
12 then Mr. Djeric says, "War is chaos, but it is a fact that each minister
13 must be held responsible."
14 Have you had an opportunity to see this journal of mine?
15 A. No, I hadn't had an opportunity to see this particular journal or
16 document, but I have had occasion to read the debates both at the
17 government level and in the RS Assembly in the course of 1992, and I
18 would note that everything that I see written on this page is amply
19 reflected and amplified in the debates of the Assembly at the time.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. Is this the time for
21 the break?
22 JUDGE KWON: Yes. We will have a break for half an hour and
23 resume at five past 11.00.
24 --- Recess taken at 10.33 a.m.
25 --- On resuming at 11.07 a.m.
Page 16491
1 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Karadzic.
2 THE ACCUSED: Thank you, Excellency.
3 [Interpretation] Can we have now in e-court 65 ter 18407.
4 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
5 Q. I believe that you are familiar with this document too. The
6 Ministry of Judiciary and Administration is writing to the Ministry of
7 the Interior, and in the first paragraph, the second sentence reads as
8 follows -- I don't know if the translation is ready or not, but it says:
9 "There are incidents in which Executive Committees are rendering
10 decision on putting temporarily confiscated items to auctions which
11 constitutes a violation of the law. The internal organs shall provide
12 custody and guarding of the confiscated items in the manner determined by
13 the competent court."
14 And then it says that there are items whose owners are not known
15 or are perpetrators of criminal offence, but even in such instances, the
16 law must be abided by.
17 Have you seen this document before? But since this was produced
18 by the Ministry of the Judiciary, you probably didn't deal with this
19 extensively. However, you can read our language, and you can see here on
20 the first page that the Ministry of Justice is warning the Ministry of
21 the Interior to make an effort and prevent unlawful treatment of
22 confiscated items; is that correct?
23 A. I am familiar with this document. I have read it and analysed it
24 previously. I confirm that your reading of the document is correct and
25 note that it is to be read in the context of a widespread pattern in
Page 16492
1 which persons, both private persons and employees of the Ministry of
2 Internal Affairs had illegally disposed of property that have been
3 confiscated by the police. In many cases, such items were transferred to
4 the territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and sold there for
5 personal profit.
6 Q. Thank you. Now we have the translation.
7 JUDGE KWON: Yes, thanks to Madam Sutherland.
8 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
9 Q. Can we look at the last page, please. Conclusion. It reads:
10 "The securing of the facilities housing the items --
11 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters note that we do not have either
12 the Serbian or the English version.
13 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
14 Q. Can we have the last page in e-court, please. I don't know if
15 this was properly translated, "by having control," which in Serbian is to
16 dispose of, that is to say to use at their own will and as they see fit;
17 right?
18 A. I agree that's what the document states. It's in my view
19 somewhat ironic that this document was produced by Momcilo Mandic, who at
20 the time was the Minister of Justice since Momcilo Mandic himself
21 subsequently became the subject of a number of investigations that
22 alleged that he had been engaged in personally profiting from the sale of
23 confiscated items, that is, items that have been confiscated on the
24 territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina and which were being sold on the
25 territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Page 16493
1 Q. Do you recall that I established a commission chaired by
2 Vice-President Koljevic to investigate the allegations against
3 Maljevic --
4 THE INTERPRETER: Mandic, interpreter's correction.
5 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
6 Q. -- and that Koljevic, although he did not like Mandic too much,
7 did decide that all of this was just slander?
8 A. Yes, I'm familiar with that commission and its findings. I would
9 point out that was hardly the last commission or criminal investigation
10 into those matters conducted.
11 Q. Thank you. And do you know that Mr. Mandic was exonerated of all
12 charges for economic crimes and for war crimes by the Court of
13 Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was not too much favourably inclined towards
14 him? I just wanted to point out that this is an illustration of how much
15 we like to accuse each other and get involved in mud-slinging.
16 A. I know that Mr. Mandic was exonerated of some charges. I believe
17 that he was actually convicted on at least some charges. He did serve
18 some time in prison, if I recall correctly. I would not agree with your
19 characterization of the Court in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I would, however,
20 agree with you that there are ample indications in various media that
21 persons such as Mico Stanisic, Tomislav Kovac, Branko Djeric, and others
22 have, for well over a decade now, engaged in finger-pointing exercises
23 related to this and other allegations of criminal activity.
24 Q. Thank you.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
Page 16494
1 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
2 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1531, Your Honours.
3 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
4 Q. Can we now have 65 ter 5286. This is now the month of October.
5 Hopefully we have a translation. Yes, we do.
6 Do you agree that here Minister Stanisic, and I believe you have
7 seen this document, is ordering all security services centres and police
8 stations where there are no direct war operations to withdraw the police
9 from the battle-field in order for them to be able to carry out their
10 regular police work. And then in paragraph 2, it says:
11 "After having rationalised the reserve police work-force and
12 after their transfer to the Army of Republika Srpska, the heads of
13 centres and SJBs have an obligation to inform military commands that it
14 was not their duty to send police force members to be transferred to the
15 front line ..."
16 Do you agree that the induction of law and order frequently
17 depended on the fact of how many policemen were deployed on the defence
18 front lines, that is to say how many of them were absent from their
19 primary tasks?
20 A. I deal with this topic at length in my report and I cite at least
21 one version of the document we have in front of us. Certainly from July
22 1992 all the way until the end of 1992, Mico Stanisic and other leading
23 officials of the RS MUP are displaying dissatisfaction with the extensive
24 involvement of the police in combat activities. In my direct examination
25 I referred to the phenomenon dealt with at the 11 July meeting and again
Page 16495
1 on the 17 July document. Both documents contain the quote that it's
2 unacceptable that the police are in the trenches and the soldiers are
3 conducting traffic check-points. So it is very much the case that
4 Mico Stanisic is aware of the fact that this has a negative consequence
5 on the functioning of the ministry and that he tries with mixed success
6 to extricate the police from combat operations. When I say "mixed
7 success," what I mean by that is that the draft 1990 -- 1992 annual
8 report of the ministry demonstrates that until the very end of 1992 and,
9 indeed, beyond that point the police continued to be heavily engaged in
10 combat activities.
11 Q. Thank you.
12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
13 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
14 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1532, Your Honours.
15 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Can we briefly take a look at MFI D1371. Hopefully, it's been
17 translated, but let us just remind ourselves of the extended meeting of
18 the senior staff members of the 5th of November held in Bijeljina. I
19 believe you've seen this document. So it's D1371.
20 Do you recall this extended meeting of the senior staff members?
21 Do you agree that a confusion can be created if you say "extended
22 meeting" or if you say "extended senior staff meeting"? What we are
23 talking here is an extended meeting; right? You speak our language. You
24 can make the distinction?
25 A. I agree with you. The RS MUP during this period was not always
Page 16496
1 very attentive to its use of language.
2 Q. Can we have page 3. Third paragraph reads:
3 "Reminding of the conclusions from Trebinje, it has been
4 underlined once again that members of the service can only be those
5 persons who meet the requirements for working in the organs of the
6 internal. We have to purge our ranks again from such individuals who are
7 doing things that are not permitted intentionally."
8 Have you seen any information asking check-ups of criminal
9 records to be checked for people who have been nominated to work in the
10 police?
11 A. That's a very interesting question, because, in fact, even when
12 one reviews the personnel records of RS MUP in 1992, there do not appear
13 to be a large number of documents that would be asking for criminal
14 records to be checked or documentation of such criminal records to have
15 been checked for people who were nominated to work in the police, which,
16 as you have previously noted, should have been standard operating
17 procedure in the police.
18 I would note again that Mico Stanisic, as I noted earlier today,
19 was well aware of the fact that particularly as regarded the reserve
20 members of the police, a large number of unsuitable elements, including
21 people he himself referred to as thieves and criminals, had been included
22 in the reserve police forces of the RS MUP during the first months of its
23 operation. I would also point out that the language in the paragraph
24 that you just read makes it clear that this is a recurring phenomenon.
25 They've discussed it in Belgrade. They've discussed it in Trebinje. Now
Page 16497
1 they're discussing it in Bijeljina, and they still feel the need to keep
2 reminding everybody in the ministry that this is an important issue that
3 remains to be fully resolved.
4 Q. Thank you. There are a number of folders containing between 500
5 and 600 pages, particularly in the Banja Luka CSB in which there are
6 demands for various vetting procedures to be conducted for people who
7 were nominated, and admittedly some of them did have criminal records,
8 but some didn't. Did you have an opportunity to see those binders with
9 these many pages?
10 A. I do not have a recollection of seeing binders which correspond
11 to what you are just describing, so I do not know whether those were
12 available in the OTP collections at the time when I reviewed those
13 collections. I would also be curious in knowing what the date of those
14 vetting procedures were. As is indicated by the document in front of us,
15 there were significant efforts made in the second half of 1992 which
16 yielded some success, especially once 1993 started and the situation
17 stabilised a bit. Efforts were made to vet those police who had been
18 recruited. Already in the second half of 1992, large numbers of reserve
19 police were simply transferred to the VRS as the most expedient method
20 identified by the minister himself making the staff of the ministry
21 manageable and transferring away from the Ministry of Internal Affairs
22 those persons with inappropriate backgrounds.
23 Q. Do you agree that it was more difficult to be in the army than in
24 the police and that it constituted a certain degradation, not to say
25 punishment, because working in the army was more difficult than working
Page 16498
1 in the police?
2 A. Here we have a case where both the army and the police seem to be
3 constantly disagreeing, particularly in 1992, as to who was bearing the
4 brunt of the burden of combat activities, and there are indications of
5 officers of the VRS accusing the police of harbouring people who are
6 actively seeking police employment so as to avoid combat activity.
7 Alternately, the police retorts that they are so involved in combat
8 activity it is in fact the VRS that is relaxing while the MUP is bearing
9 the brunt of the burden.
10 In any case, it is clear that from the perspective of some people
11 in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, transferring someone to the VRS was
12 equated with some kind of punishment.
13 Q. Thank you. Can we look at page 6 which speak about reporting.
14 Do you agree that there was a tendency amongst people not to report their
15 own mistakes? So, please, look at the first three lines where the
16 minister is instructed that in Zvornik, rigorous -- vigorous measures
17 should be taken towards heads of the SJB, including their dismissal
18 because of the mistakes and flaws in the process of reporting.
19 Did you come across such mistakes in the reporting procedures?
20 A. Yes, there are cases in which the minister expresses concern or
21 dissatisfaction about insufficient reporting or inadequate reporting, and
22 that is one of the reasons why the minister, in the course of the summer
23 and autumn of 1992, sends out a considerable number of orders,
24 instructions, and dispatches, all aimed at creating a better system of
25 reporting. I deal with this on pages 71 and following of my own report.
Page 16499
1 And it is also the case that Minister Stanisic sent a team of inspectors
2 to visit the various regions controlled by the RS in an effort to make
3 sure the police, both at the CSB or regional level, as well as the
4 municipal or SJB level, was functioning according to the Law on Internal
5 Affairs and the relevant regulations of the ministry. During the course
6 of those inspections a number of irregularities were discovered.
7 Q. Is my assumption correct when I say that people are not very
8 eager to report their own mistakes and transgressions and that they are
9 prone to waiting for inspections to come?
10 A. Unfortunately, I think that's the case not only in the Serbian
11 Republic but in very many countries.
12 Q. Thank you. Can we now look at P2761 just briefly. I'm
13 interested in only two paragraphs that will illustrate my point. P2761.
14 You've mentioned this report on work during the period from April
15 to December 1992; right?
16 A. I cite this document extensively in my report and deal with it
17 specifically in the section of my report from paragraphs 379 to 391.
18 Q. Thank you. I'm interested in page 14 in English and 19 in
19 Serbian. Can they be displayed.
20 Please pay attention to the fourth paragraph in the Serbian
21 language. Let's see where that is in English. The most severe forms of
22 crime -- there is awareness that the most severe forms of crime which
23 appeared in this period for brutality, ruthlessness and other elements
24 comprising it are others against humanitarian international law. The
25 number of these crimes is surely much greater and the collection of
Page 16500
1 documents is a difficult and long-term task. We have registered 101
2 crimes against humanity and international law?
3 THE INTERPRETER: Could Mr. Karadzic please be asked to read
4 slowly.
5 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
6 Q. Have you noticed that?
7 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, the interpreters couldn't follow from
8 a certain point.
9 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
10 Q. The paragraph begins with the words the most severe forms of
11 crime. I interpreted it. I can read again but I believe that we all see
12 it and we can all read it. I just wanted to ask the witness whether he
13 noticed that there indeed had been awareness that those were the most
14 severe forms of crime and that there had already been registered 101
15 crimes against humanity and international law.
16 A. Yes, I took note of that, and I also cited that precise figure in
17 paragraph 388 of my report.
18 Q. Thank you. And in footnote 4, it says that documentation was
19 also collected by the National Security Service and the service for crime
20 prevention; right?
21 A. That is correct, and that was in accordance with the Law on
22 Internal Affairs.
23 Q. Can we now look at page 24 in Serbian. I believe that the page
24 number's the same in English. It says here: Numerous actions were taken
25 in order to document crimes, and so on and so forth. A total of 2.500
Page 16501
1 different expert analyses, dactyloscopies and similar measures were
2 taken. Almost all crimes were carried out in CSB Banja Luka and some of
3 them in Trebinje. Over 88.000 on-site investigations were carried out.
4 Over 2.000 search warrants were issued. Almost 27.000 interviews were
5 carried out.
6 Do you agree with me that this is indeed an impressive result of
7 activities that had taken place between April and December, especially in
8 view of technical and personnel resources?
9 A. I agree that this is a demonstration of a considerable amount of
10 activity undertaken by the investigative organs of the RS MUP from April
11 to the end of 1992. As to whether it is, in fact, an impressive result,
12 certainly the employees of the ministry itself were proud of this result
13 and included it in the annual report. I don't know how it compares to
14 the number of similar investigative activities undertaken in the old
15 joint MUP, so I'm not in a position to compare the level of activity. I
16 do, however, know that the police on several occasions noted that despite
17 the extensive activity undertaken by the police, a great number of
18 problems remained in this and in other fields related to the work of the
19 police and that's also dealt with in this report. And I would like to
20 emphasise that this is an extraordinary document. It's very important to
21 read it in its entirety.
22 Q. Thank you. Do you know that to this very day judiciary
23 proceedings are being carried out based on the reports that were filed
24 during the war by the police of the Republika Srpska and the
25 investigating judges of the Republika Srpska? All the documents have
Page 16502
1 been preserved and court proceedings are being carried now.
2 A. Yes, I am aware, based on information that I have from my
3 colleagues in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the RS, that in many
4 cases court proceedings being carried out in 2011 do contain, in the
5 court dossiers, information that was produced during the war by the
6 police of the RS and by the investigative judges of the RS. I also know
7 that my colleagues in Banja Luka at the ministry have on occasion pointed
8 out to me that many of those dossiers languished in desk drawers of the
9 police or the Ministry of Justice during the war and were only made the
10 subject of thorough investigation at a much later date.
11 Q. Thank you. Can we now look at 65 ter 18346. And that would
12 bring us to the end of the inspection of documents at the republican
13 level. We would then move on to the municipal level. 65 ter 18346, I
14 hoped it had a translation. Do you agree the document was issued while
15 the minister of the interior was Ratko Adzic. In April 1993, he issued
16 an order to all employees and members of the Ministry of the Interior of
17 the Republika Srpska who had unlawfully appropriated any goods to report
18 that to their employer within ten days. Should it be established that
19 somebody failed to do that and should stolen goods be found on their
20 person, legal measures would be taken against them. The new minister
21 inherited the obligation to purge the police ranks and to punish those
22 who are in illegal possession of stolen goods. Do you agree with that?
23 A. The new minister, indeed, inherited the obligation to purge the
24 police ranks and to punish those who were in possession of stolen goods.
25 By the same logic, he also inherited a ministry in which such persons had
Page 16503
1 not yet been purged. As of April 1993 this shows that the situation of
2 which Mico Stanisic had spoken repeatedly in the entire period from April
3 1992 until the end of 1992, had still not been addressed to the point
4 that it was no longer relevant. It's still an issue that the new
5 minister has to remind his subordinates of in April 1993.
6 Q. Thank you.
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted or marked for
8 identification?
9 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
10 THE REGISTRAR: MFI D1533, Your Honours.
11 Q. And now I'd like to draw your attention to a set of documents
12 which refer to the functioning of the police in the security services
13 centres. Do you agree with me that the Trial Chamber should know that
14 that was the middle level? There was a ministry at the republican level.
15 There were security services centres at regional levels, and there were
16 public security stations at municipal levels subordinated to the middle
17 level CSBs; right.
18 A. Yes. I have testified to that effect. It's in my report, and
19 it's also reflected in the organigrammes that are appended to the report.
20 Q. Can we now look at 65 ter 05297.
21 THE REGISTRAR: This is Exhibit P2765, Your Honours.
22 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
23 Q. I'm sure that you have come across this document. It was issued
24 in late July 1992. The chief of the security services centre in
25 Sarajevo, Zoran Cvijetic mentions looting and large-scale theft and he
Page 16504
1 says that -- the impression is that all that was the result of organised
2 crime activities and that some police officers seemed to be involved.
3 A. Yes, I am familiar with this document and its contents.
4 Q. Can we move on to the second page both in Serbian and in English.
5 Yes, in English as well.
6 Here the military police is described as searching civilian
7 premises which they shouldn't do, and that some order has to be restored
8 into that, that citizens report to public security stations that things
9 like that are happening. Do you agree with all that?
10 A. Yes, I agree that that's what the document states. It accurately
11 reflects a situation in which there were a number of disagreements about
12 jurisdiction and operations at the operational level between the VRS and
13 the RS MUP, and that was the subject of discussions at the level of
14 the -- of the leadership of both the army and the police.
15 Q. Thank you. Can you now look at 65 ter 01595. This was also
16 issued by the Romanija Bircani Security Services Centre in Sarajevo. Are
17 you familiar with this document which says that an order was issued by
18 the minister of the interior to disband the Special Police Units and to
19 be resubordinated to the army and in the third paragraph it says that
20 they should be removed from the territories where they are active and
21 that refers to all the groups and the individuals who are not under the
22 control of the Army of Republika Srpska. And those who have been
23 disbanded have to be resubordinated to the army. And that all crimes
24 should be documented, and that measures should be taken in keeping with
25 the provisions of the Law on Criminal Procedure.
Page 16505
1 Have you come across this document?
2 A. Yes, I am aware of this document, and it conforms to the process
3 that we discussed earlier today, namely the effort undertaken after the
4 11th of July to disband Special Police Units that had been formed at the
5 level of the SJBs and the CSBs in order that they be replaced by one
6 centralised Special Police Unit. One salient point that I would also
7 note for the Court's attention in the previous document that we examined
8 is that document also notes that, because of the difficulties encountered
9 in co-operation with the military police, the police had actually started
10 to form joint check-points with the military police and that this had
11 already ameliorated the situation.
12 Q. Can we move on to the following page in English, as well as in
13 Serbian. The second paragraph in Serbian, as you can see here, a new
14 order was issued that criminals should be removed from the Ministry of
15 the Interior, especially those who were prosecuted ex officio, save for
16 political and verbal offences. Do you remember that during the Communist
17 reign the most common crimes against the state were the so-called verbal
18 offences, whereas the new authorities do not punish such offences?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Thank you. Can we go to the following page in English, please.
21 Penultimate paragraph and I'm reading from the Serbian version where it
22 says that:
23 "Proper measures will be taken against all responsible persons of
24 the Ministry of the Interior who fail to act in accordance with this
25 order."
Page 16506
1 Can you see that?
2 A. Yes, I see that and I would note that the paragraph before that
3 also notes that those who are being dismissed from the police are being
4 transferred or put at the disposal of the Army of the RS.
5 Q. Thank you. In the Serbian version I would like to draw your
6 attention to the first paragraph where it says that there were repeated
7 complaints about lack of information. Is that correct? And it also says
8 that the Ministry of the Interior should receive continuous and timely
9 information along all the lines of work; right?
10 A. Yes. This document contains one of many reminders I've seen in
11 RS MUP documentation during this period emphasising that it is important
12 to communicate in a timely manner, particularly with the seat of the
13 ministry.
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
15 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
16 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1534, Your Honours.
17 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
18 Q. Can we now look at 65 ter 18273. Can we zoom in on the first
19 article entitled "Critical Situation In Sanski Most." The first part of
20 this page, yes. Thank you.
21 Is this the 30th March 1992, on the eve of the first war conflict
22 breaking out, and it says here that all those placing obstacles to
23 investigations will be prevented from doing that. The MUP was still a
24 joint organisation, and the question is raised why the joint MUP doesn't
25 want to employ 150 people in the public security station in Banja Luka.
Page 16507
1 Have you come across this information? Are you familiar with the
2 hardships that existed at the time?
3 A. Yes, I am familiar with this document. I'm familiar that that
4 was the point of view held by Stojan Zupljanin and many other Serbs in
5 CSB Banja Luka and SJB Banja Luka as of the end of March 1992, and I
6 refer in my report to their dissatisfaction with the operation of the
7 joint MUP for many of the reasons that I already testified to yesterday.
8 Q. Preventing investigation continues with the words that in a place
9 called Dobretic, which was a Croatian village, the HDZ did not allow
10 investigations to take place whereas the murderer was allowed to escape
11 from the law enforcement agencies. Do you see that, the words are to
12 prevent investigation.
13 A. I agree that that is an incident that is discussed in this
14 article. I would also point out that such incidents in which criminal
15 investigations by the police in Bosnia before April 1992 were blocked
16 allegedly by one of the three parties that formed the ruling coalition in
17 Bosnia and Herzegovina or officials of those parties. Such incidents
18 took place increasingly during the second half of 1991 and early 1992,
19 and we can see Bosnian Muslims complaining of that with respect to
20 Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats, Bosnian Croats complaining of that with
21 respect to Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Muslims, and of course, Bosnian
22 Serbs complaining of this problem with respect to both Croats and
23 Muslims.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. Can this be admitted?
25 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
Page 16508
1 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1535, Your Honours.
2 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
3 Q. Can we now look at 65 ter 05457. I believe that you have come
4 across this document. This is a report -- or, rather, conclusions from
5 the meeting of the Centre Council held on 6 May 1992. In other words,
6 that was at the end of the first month of war. Did you ever see this
7 document?
8 A. Yes, I have reviewed this document, and it's cited on several
9 occasions in my report.
10 Q. Can we go to the following page, please. Under 3 there is a
11 reference to adopting stricter measures towards police officers and
12 senior police officers. They have to start wearing berets. They have to
13 set an example and serve as role models, whereas under 5 it says:
14 "We have to identify in time those of us involved in criminal
15 activities and we must take rigorous steps against them (immediately
16 commence disciplinary proceedings)."
17 I'm sure you noticed all that; right?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Thank you. Can we have the next page, please. That would be
20 paragraph 15, so in English it's perhaps two pages further.
21 Paragraph 15. Do you agree that it says that the documentation
22 of the activities of war profiteers should be intensified and
23 investigations should be started against them. "Operative processing" is
24 the police term used here, I believe?
25 A. Yes.
Page 16509
1 Q. Thank you. Can this be admitted?
2 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
3 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1536, Your Honours.
4 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
5 Q. Thank you can we have 65 ter 00798 now, please? Do you remember
6 that you've seen this document as well? It's the 26th of May, again the
7 Banja Luka centre. And in paragraph 1, it says that there are
8 shortcomings in the daily reports. So very often information provided is
9 not complete. Morning dispatches are not being sent on time. Incidents
10 that are subsequently learned of are not being registered, and
11 comprehensive daily reports are not being sent.
12 Do you remember this report?
13 A. Yes, I do, and I agree with your reading of the document. I
14 would supplement your comments on the document by noting that Zupljanin,
15 who was at the time the chief of CSB Banja Luka, is doing this pursuant
16 to an order issued on the 16th of May, 1992, by Mico Stanisic, and this
17 is one of a considerable number of documents that shows that both
18 Minister Stanisic and chief of CSB Banja Luka Stojan Zupljanin were they
19 intent on obtaining, in a timely and regular manner, all relevant
20 information on the work of the police and on security events from the
21 local and municipal level all the way up through the centres to the
22 ministry itself.
23 Q. Thank you. We see here in the second part a description of these
24 crimes. Can we have the next page now. Description of the crimes that
25 have to be reported. It says under 23: Cases of the activation of
Page 16510
1 explosive devices. And number 24: The number of cases of desecration of
2 monuments, cemeteries and so on. Do you agree that this indicates that
3 there was a war going on, explosive devices, and also monuments and
4 cemeteries were being desecrated?
5 A. As a analyst I, cannot based on this document alone, conclude
6 that there was a war going on, although I, of course, know that one was
7 going on. I would merely point out that as I noted yesterday, already by
8 December 1991, that is several months before armed conflict actually
9 erupted on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, well over 500
10 incidents of explosions had taken place, some of those involving attacks
11 on residents but also some of them involving desecration of monuments,
12 cemeteries, and the types of incidents that are also the focus of this
13 information collection.
14 Q. Thank you. Do you remember that in 1991, a monument was blown
15 up, a monument to our only Nobel Prize winner, Ivo Andric, in Visegrad?
16 He won the literature Nobel Prize.
17 A. I was not aware of the fact that that particular monument was
18 blown up in 1991. I do, however, know that in 1991 a great many
19 monuments, including many related to the Partisan movement and its
20 exploits in World War II were being defaced or destroyed, a trend which
21 increased after the beginning of the war.
22 Q. Thank you. Can this be admitted?
23 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
24 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1537, Your Honours.
25 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
Page 16511
1 Q. Can we have 65 ter 00286. Do you remember that towards the end
2 of May there was major fighting in the Sana River valley in the
3 municipalities of Kljuc, Sanski Most, Prijedor, and Bosanski Novi?
4 Muslim formations in the territory of the Sana River attacked these
5 towns -- or, rather, the police and the military in those towns.
6 A. I am generally aware that there were combat operations in that
7 area towards the end of May. I'm not familiar with the details of those
8 operations or any matter related to the question of who attacked whom. I
9 only dealt with such operations to the extent that they were reflected in
10 police documentation.
11 Q. Thank you. Do you agree that Stojan Zupljanin is asking here
12 that the police not be engaged without orders, that they should not be
13 involved in any kind of combat activity, not even in relation to the
14 corps, unless this had been synchronised and set as such. Have you seen
15 this document?
16 A. Yes, I have seen this document and Zupljanin's desires and orders
17 are in harmony with the desire of Mico Stanisic as minister of internal
18 affairs at this point to ensure that police forces would not be deployed
19 without the permission of the ministry to engage in combat activities.
20 Q. Yes. The second paragraph says that any engagement or activity
21 of the police is forbidden and so on; is that right?
22 A. Correct.
23 Q. Thank you.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
25 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
Page 16512
1 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1538, Your Honours.
2 MS. SUTHERLAND: Excuse me, Your Honour.
3 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
4 MS. SUTHERLAND: This is a document that we've put in for a
5 revision for the illegible name at the top in the handwriting. So that
6 will end up in e-court.
7 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
9 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
10 Q. Can we have 65 ter 05552. This is a document of the CSB
11 Banja Luka, the 30th of July, 1992. It's being sent to all public
12 security stations, to the commands of the 1st and 2nd Krajina Corps and
13 also to the MUP of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and in the first paragraph it says
14 that since the war had broken out, the situation is characterized by
15 armed rebellions in the territory. I'm paraphrasing sort of. Then
16 paramilitary formations are being formed, armed groups. There are acts
17 of sabotage and terrorism against socially owned property and private
18 property. Also the most serious forms of crime and looting, then failure
19 to respect the law, civil disobedience, the unauthorised use of weapons,
20 the dissemination of rumours and misinformation and so on. Have you come
21 across this document?
22 A. Yes, I am fully aware of this document, and I agree that it says
23 what you just paraphrased it as saying. I would point out that as in
24 many cases, I'm seeing the English translation of this document the first
25 time because, as you know, I read the documents in Serbian, and therefore
Page 16513
1 I think it should be pointed out to the Court that there's an error in
2 the English translation in the addressees where it says on the third line
3 of the addressees "MUP SRBH." That is not the Ministry of the
4 Internal Affairs of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina but,
5 rather, the Serbian Republic. Unfortunately, both entities used the
6 abbreviation of SRBH or BiH, but certainly by the end of July 1992,
7 Banja Luka was no longer reporting to the old ministry.
8 Q. You are quite right. However, you can never forget your first
9 love; right? That's how the saying goes.
10 Let's look at the rest of it. The last paragraph on page 1 says
11 a number of active and reserve employees of the MUP taking advantage of
12 the war are engaged in crime, illegally seizing property of citizens and
13 so on. So Stojan Zupljanin is saying that among the ranks of the police
14 there are persons who are actually committing crimes.
15 Can we have the next page?
16 What is described here is unlawful activities and also that it is
17 impermissible to tolerate, as had been the case in some areas the
18 escalation of crime. Then the second paragraph speaks about the
19 operation called "Punkt," check-point. Yes, you have it in English here
20 as well. Do you remember, together with the military police, the
21 civilian police set up joint check-points in order to deal with these
22 robbers and people who were taking away property that belonged to others?
23 A. Yes, I remember this, and since you quoted a Serbian proverb, I
24 would note that it would perhaps also be relevant to quote
25 Stojan Zupljanin, who at one point said in an interview at about this
Page 16514
1 time in the spring of 1992 that the Serbs had regarded the joint MUP of
2 Bosnia and Herzegovina as their mother but had felt as if they were being
3 treated as if that ministry was their mother-in-law, "maceha."
4 Q. Thank you. Can we have the next page in Serbian. In English
5 it's fine.
6 Do you remember that the army and the police believed that false
7 patriots in the name of Serbs, Serb interest, and Serb freedoms committed
8 crimes? That's paragraph 2. And in Serbian it's actually the next one.
9 It says: These phenomena and activities are giving rise to bitterness
10 and indignation. First of all, among the Serb people in whose name and
11 in the name of whose symbols, appalling criminal acts, looting, arson,
12 robbery and violence are being committed. Among other ethnic
13 communities, this creates fear and unavoidably causes ethnic division and
14 a lack of confidence in the institutions of the system. There is a
15 realistic and objective danger that unless such occurrences are
16 prevented, all control will be lost, which could have unimaginable
17 consequences for the security of public order.
18 So would you agree that there was an awareness that these were
19 false patriots who were committing misdeeds in the name of Serbdom?
20 A. I agree that that is precisely what the document states. At this
21 point in the summer of 1992, by the end of July, we see a substantial
22 shift in the attitude of leading officials of the Serbian Ministry of
23 Internal Affairs in Bosnia and Herzegovina towards such groups whereas in
24 the period from April until June the presence and activities of such
25 groups had been tolerated and, indeed, in some cases formed the subject
Page 16515
1 of joint operations with the police. By the end of July, the police and
2 its leadership was taking a very different stance that was aimed at
3 bringing those groups under control, not least because they were, as is
4 stated elsewhere in this document, beginning to carry out criminal
5 activities in which case -- or in the cases of which in many instances
6 Serbs, as well as others, were the victims.
7 Q. Thank you. However, do you agree that at first people could not
8 know who was prone to crime unless they actually did exhibit some
9 criminal activity?
10 A. I -- I cannot agree with that conclusion. As just one example of
11 why I cannot agree I would again come back to Mr. Milankovic, who in
12 September 1991 is featured in a document produced by Stojan Zupljanin in
13 which he states - and since I had the opportunity to see it in e-court
14 yesterday I now recall the precise number, was the subject of 54 criminal
15 complaints that were pending against him. When he re-surfaces and
16 co-operates in large measure with his group in the spring and summer of
17 1992, there is no question that the police knew precisely who that person
18 was and were well aware of the fact that he and others in that group, as
19 well as similar other groups, had criminal records.
20 Unfortunately, the police in the Serbian Republic at the outset
21 of the conflict took the attitude that those persons should be allowed,
22 carte blanche, to undertake operations as long as they were doing so as
23 "patriots." I believe that this precise conclusion of mine is also borne
24 out by the extensive document which the Defence introduced last week
25 during the testimony of Mico Davidovic and which I had the opportunity to
Page 16516
1 review for the first time once it was introduced in court.
2 Q. But do you remember from that particular document concerning the
3 crimes of Veljko Milankovic that, basically, it was unlawful trades,
4 smuggling of cars, and in countries that were under the Turkish or
5 Austro-Hungarian empire for a long time, that is not considered to be a
6 major crime to cheat the authorities, because our country was in that
7 position for a long time in its history.
8 A. Well, you'll have to excuse me for not being familiar with the
9 precise age of Mr. Milankovic, but I don't believe he was alive at the
10 time of during Ottoman or Austro-Hungarian rule and the crimes that he
11 was alleged to have committed that formed the subject of the criminal
12 complaints against him of which Stojan Zupljanin was aware in 1991 were
13 committed against the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, among
14 others. I would also note that I find this kind of relativisation of
15 illegal smuggling, smuggling of automobiles quite curious as we just
16 spent quite some portion of time emphasising that the police of the RS
17 tried to take, with some delay, those precise criminal activities very
18 seriously and to crack down on them even during the course of 1992. And
19 as is revealed in the document produced by Mico Davidovic last week, it
20 was the case that Milankovic and others in many cases entered the
21 territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and were engaged in ostensibly
22 combat activities where they were literally being followed by trucks or
23 even railway cars, onto which they were loading all of the assets that
24 they were illegally confiscating, and then transferring across the border
25 into the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for personal gain. So much as it
Page 16517
1 may be romantic to portray Mr. Milankovic as a "hajduk," I cannot agree
2 with that characterization.
3 Q. I agree, Dr. Nielsen, that Mr. Milankovic did not live in the
4 times of Austro-Hungarian or Turkish occupation, but you will agree that
5 customs and habits and attitudes towards state property live on longer
6 than any empire. Would you agree with that?
7 JUDGE KWON: Let's move on, Mr. Karadzic.
8 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
9 Q. Could we have the next page in English please, and we've already
10 moved on to the next page in Serbian. So what we have here are orders.
11 So that was the previous page in Serbian.
12 "In order to overcome the situation that has arisen and ensure
13 the efficient functioning the centre, I hereby order, order, number 1:
14 "In the performance of their duties, public security stations as
15 the organisational units of the centre may carry out only jobs and tasks
16 falling within their competence in accordance with the law ..."
17 And so on and so forth.
18 I don't need to read all of it out, but do you see on this page
19 these six orders that were issued by Mr. Zupljanin? And there are more
20 orders of this kind on the next page up to 11. Were you aware of this
21 document?
22 A. Yes, I was aware of this document, and I agree that it is saying
23 what you read it as saying, and it is amply corroborated by many other
24 documents with similar content produced by the RS MUP during this period.
25 Q. Thank you. I would like to draw your attention to paragraph 4
Page 16518
1 where it says that what happened was that citizens were being arrested
2 irrespective of their ethnic affiliation by unauthorised groups and
3 individuals, and he is asking for that to be clarified immediately and
4 that these persons should be released along with proper documentation.
5 A. Correct.
6 Q. Can we have the next page, please, in English and in Serbian.
7 Paragraph 7, what is asked for is to establish immediately
8 whether paramilitary organisations exist and carry out various
9 activities, and also competent military security organs should be
10 informed about this.
11 Then point 8, removing all check-points on main roads and other
12 roads that have not been set up by the police and so on.
13 Also 9, it has to do with criminal activities and public security
14 stations and police stations themselves.
15 And then 10, file criminal reports against employees of public
16 security stations with the competent public prosecutors' offices.
17 And 11: "Chiefs of public security stations may not carry out
18 any personnel changes without the approval of this centre, "and so on.
19 Can we have the next page, please.
20 The end of July. That is to say, this was a rather lengthy order
21 issued by Mr. Zupljanin, and it deals with an entire scope of
22 security-related problems that they had to face. Do you agree with that?
23 A. Absolutely.
24 Q. Thank you.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
Page 16519
1 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
2 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1539, Your Honours.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] We probably have time for one more
4 65 ter 5 -- oh, no. No. This is a translation. I beg your pardon.
5 This is a -- 18492. That's the 65 ter number.
6 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
7 Q. You probably remember this as well. He is reporting about a
8 joint action of disarming paramilitary formations, taking away cars,
9 ammunition, technical goods, and so on.
10 I have to ask you something, Dr. Nielsen. Did you establish
11 yourself or did you take this from somebody else that it was only
12 non-Serbs who were being disarmed in this area? In your report there is
13 a reference to disarming of non-Serbs. However, documents show that
14 Serbs were being disarmed as well, and in some municipalities it was only
15 Serbs who were being disarmed, because probably Muslims and Croats didn't
16 have any weapons.
17 A. It is my own analytical conclusions that are included in my
18 report of which I am again, as I stated earlier, the sole author. Based
19 on my review of RS MUP documentation and a small quantity of military
20 documentation, from summer of 1992 it is clear to me that the police, in
21 conjunction with the JNA until it left the territory of Bosnia and
22 Herzegovina, and the TO, and later with the VRS, engaged in activities
23 that were ostensibly aimed at disarming the civilian population
24 regardless of ethnicity.
25 However, as I discuss in my report, I see references to it, for
Page 16520
1 example, in paragraph 200, and I know that there are other references to
2 it in the report, the actual operations appeared when examined overall to
3 have the impact of focusing on the collection of weapons from the Croat
4 and Bosnian Muslim population, certainly in north-western
5 Bosnia-Herzegovina, the area known as Bosanska Krajina.
6 Q. Thank you. Do you agree that as we had a front line that was
7 about 1.500 kilometres, we had to carry out mobilisation to a maximum and
8 that Serb weapons were legalised and were either in the police or the
9 army? However, we were not forcing the Muslims to be mobilised, so the
10 proportion may be the one that you referred to. However, if our Serbs
11 were not in these formations, then their weapons were being taken away as
12 well, and that is what these documents say, the ones that you referred
13 to; right?
14 A. I would point out that the document that we have in front of us
15 is from the 18th of August, 1992, and that the previous document we
16 examined was from the end of July, 1992. By the time we pass the middle
17 of July, there are increasing indications that the Serbian police are
18 involved in the confiscation of weaponry from Serbs in those cases where
19 such Serbs are not serving in the police, the army or other official
20 armed formations of the RS, whereas again it is important to distinguish
21 between that period and the earlier period before the middle of July 1992
22 when Serbs in paramilitary formations, as well as Serb individuals who
23 had arms and who in some cases used those arms to commit criminal acts
24 were not the subject of attempts by the Serb authorities to confiscate
25 their weapons.
Page 16521
1 As regards your point about an extensive front line and in
2 mobilisation, both of the police and of the army in which Serbs were the
3 vast majority of such formations, and Muslims and Croats did not serve, I
4 with agree with that characterization.
5 Q. Then just another saying of ours that you must be familiar with.
6 Time was needed to see who was prone to crime, and in our parts they say,
7 it doesn't snow that hills would be covered with snow, but to have every
8 animal show its traces. Would you agree with that?
9 A. If I may respond in Serbian. [Interpretation] Well, that is
10 certainly possible. However, in that case, I'd like to refer to yet
11 another proverb, that sometimes it seems that the police behaves in a way
12 that would correspond to the following proverb: This old woman is
13 combing her hair regardless of the fact that the village is on fire.
14 Q. Thank you.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
16 JUDGE KWON: We need a break to digest the proverbs.
17 That will be exhibited as D1540, and we'll have a break. Yes,
18 Ms. Sutherland.
19 MS. SUTHERLAND: And, Your Honour, I just note that this is
20 another document that's put in for revision because the illegible name
21 that is clearly legible in the document. That's the same as the other
22 document I referred to. So that will be in e-court.
23 JUDGE KWON: Thank you for your comment.
24 Yes. We'll have a break for an hour and resume at five past
25 1.00.
Page 16522
1 [Trial Chamber confers]
2 JUDGE KWON: I'm sorry, 1.35.
3 --- Luncheon recess taken at 12.34 p.m.
4 --- On resuming at 1.38 p.m.
5 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Karadzic.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Excellency. In the
7 presence of Dr. Nielsen, I would like to kindly ask you to consider the
8 possibility of allotting two sessions to me tomorrow. This is an
9 important report that have 395 paragraphs, hundreds and hundreds of
10 footnotes, and, indeed, I didn't get enough time. If I could be given
11 another two sessions tomorrow, that would be greatly helpful in my
12 dealing with all these important issues that I cannot do with other
13 witnesses.
14 JUDGE KWON: Please proceed as efficiently as you can, and we'll
15 consider the request at the end of today's session.
16 Yes, Ms. Sutherland.
17 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, I was just going to say the
18 Trial Chamber may be benefitted from knowing that the next two witnesses
19 are here ready to start, and on the current prediction for time
20 estimates, then it would mean that one of the witnesses would have to
21 stay, perhaps unnecessarily, over the weekend to complete their testimony
22 on Monday if two sessions, two full sessions, were to be given, and
23 perhaps even less than that. That's the situation, Your Honour.
24 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
25 Yes, Mr. Karadzic.
Page 16523
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. Can we have
2 65 ter 18299.
3 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
4 Q. I believe that you made reference to this document, and I'm sure
5 that you're going to recognise it as soon as you see it.
6 I believe that this is a certificate, but can we have the first
7 or the second page of this document in the Serbian. Maybe page 2. Yes.
8 Are you familiar with this document? On the 11th of May, 1992,
9 Radoslav Brdjanin, holding the position of the president of the Crisis
10 Staff of the autonomous region of Krajina case under item 1 that the
11 dead-line for the surrender of illegally procured weapons has been
12 extended to the 14th of May, and then he goes on to say that this was
13 done at the request of citizens from all ethnic groups who expressed a
14 wish to avoid any tensions relating to the surrender of weapons and the
15 JNA is also requested here to return draft-related documents to
16 respective municipalities.
17 So you'll see that a decision was made for the JNA to withdraw
18 and as a consequence he's requesting the documents that they have in
19 their possession to be returned to the municipalities.
20 A. Yes, I have been familiar with this document. It is a document
21 that I've analysed. I may cite it in my report as well. And I would
22 just like to take a quick moment to correct a mistake of mine from before
23 the break. My esteemed colleague from the Defence very kindly notified
24 me that in the heat of the moment I'd erroneously translated "Maceha" as
25 mother-in-law and not stepmother. That must have been a Freudian slip on
Page 16524
1 my part.
2 Q. Thank you.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this document be admitted into
4 evidence?
5 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1541, Your Honours.
7 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
8 Q. Dr. Nielsen, I'm going to try to show you as quickly as possible
9 a series of documents that deal with the disarming, and in that context
10 can we please have 65 ter 18302.
11 THE INTERPRETER: Could please all unnecessary microphones be
12 switched off. Thank you.
13 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
14 Q. This is a dispatch sent by Stojan Zupljanin to all public
15 security stations. Are you familiar with this document?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. It pertains to the confiscation of illegal weapons; right?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Thank you. Can we have the next page, please. We have a
20 response to the previous dispatch by Simo Drljaca, who says that in
21 Prijedor they have drawn up a plan but that it's not being implemented
22 due to the outbreak of war and conflicts in the area but that
23 nevertheless a lot has been done and that about 500 pieces of various
24 weapons have been seized and that in spite of that they will try to
25 continue this action successfully. Is that correct?
Page 16525
1 A. I confirm that that is what the document states with the caveat
2 that it's not Simo Drljaca personally signing it. It has been signed for
3 him by another person.
4 Q. You're right. Thank you. Can we see the next page.
5 The first page was a dispatch dated the 25th of May, but now we
6 have the 14th of May, and is it seems about the same thing. After what
7 they had received from Brdjanin, he is implementing this in relation to
8 the stations, asking plans to be drawn up. And under item 6 it says that
9 proper documentation should be submitted to CSB Banja Luka for
10 verification and that the results of the planned activities should be
11 submitted on a daily basis by 10.00.
12 Can we have the next page. Number 2, carry out this in
13 accordance with the law. Anyone in violation should be subjected to
14 criminal report?
15 And now we have another document dated 18th of May. This is the
16 reply from Simo Drljaca, and it says that there are paramilitary
17 formations in Prijedor municipality as follows: Ljubija, and
18 Donje Ljubija, a regiment armed mainly with small arms and sniper;
19 Rizvanovici, Hambarine and Biscani, a company; and Carakovo, a company.
20 All of this was happening on the 18th of May, and these formations
21 attacked Prijedor on the 28th or the 29th of May.
22 Did you have any information that at the time -- at that time
23 there were paramilitary formations in the area of Prijedor that could not
24 have been disarmed?
25 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
Page 16526
1 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, I just note that Mr. Karadzic is
2 giving evidence again. And I don't object to these two documents, this
3 one and the last one, but note they weren't on the 65 ter list.
4 [Trial Chamber confers]
5 MS. SUTHERLAND: Sorry, not the 65 ter list, the list of
6 documents to be used with cross-examination.
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] If I may respond. The reason for
8 that is that from one of the answers given by Dr. Nielsen, it could be
9 inferred that non-Serbs were the ones who were predominantly disarmed,
10 and I'm presenting to him a number of documents that he may not be
11 familiar with.
12 JUDGE KWON: Very well. Let's proceed.
13 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
14 Q. So, are you familiar with this document, or did you know at all
15 these two -- these four local communes in Prijedor, armed formations
16 existed on the 18th of May that Drljaca was not able to disarm?
17 A. I am familiar with both of the documents we have just viewed, and
18 I would point out the previous document from CSB Banja Luka is cited in
19 footnote -- I believe it's 224 of my report in paragraph 202 where I deal
20 with this period and this topic. I am aware of the fact that
21 Simo Drljaca and other police in the operational area of CSB Banja Luka
22 during May 1992 assert that had they were trying to deal with
23 paramilitary formations such as the ones indicated in this dispatch. I
24 am not in possession of information as to who are in these paramilitary
25 formations. I note that the document does not say anything about the
Page 16527
1 ethnicity of the members of these paramilitary formations, and I do not
2 know what, if any, activities these particular paramilitary formations
3 undertook in or around this time.
4 Q. Thank you?
5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
6 JUDGE KWON: Yes. That will be --
7 [Trial Chamber confers]
8 JUDGE KWON: My --
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] We have two --
10 JUDGE KWON: Court deputy.
11 THE REGISTRAR: That will be MFI D1542.
12 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
13 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation].
14 Q. Thank you. Can we now take a look at 65 ter 18304. Are you
15 familiar with the name of Vladimir Tutus who was the chief of the
16 Banja Luka public security station?
17 A. [Previous translation continues] ... Yes, I am familiar with
18 Vladimir Tutus, and with his recurring disagreements with his boss
19 Stojan Zupljanin.
20 Q. But Stojan Zupljanin did not replace him or dismiss him.
21 A. I believe that's correct.
22 Q. Thank you. This is dated the 30th of September, 1992. Can we
23 have the next page, because this is a covering letter and the document
24 itself is on the next page.
25 Do you agree that they are sending information here about having
Page 16528
1 confiscated a total of 202 pieces of weapons, and on the next page we can
2 see the breakdown of the weapons amongst which were also mobile radio
3 sets. Can we have the next page, please.
4 We see that they have also seized 25 radio sets and so on and so
5 on. Paragraph 4, it says that misdemeanour reports were filed for
6 possession, whereas criminal reports were filed for either preparation or
7 commission of hostile armed attacks.
8 And the last line in the Serbian. We need the next page in
9 English. It says 43 criminal reports for the crime of illegal possession
10 of weapons or explosive devices.
11 So you will agree that misdemeanour report is slightly lighter,
12 whereas criminal reports are always filed for more serious felonies such
13 as possession -- illegal possession of arms or explosives and preparation
14 of armed operation?
15 A. [Previous translation continues] ... I agree that there is a
16 difference in gravity between criminal complaints for -- or on
17 misdemeanour charges and criminal complaints on criminal charges or
18 felonies. Here I would note that at least, as I scan this document, it
19 seems to me that in some cases the illegal possession of weapons was the
20 subject of misdemeanour charges, whereas in other cases possession of
21 weapons was the subject of criminal charges, but I agree with you that
22 the gist of the document is that the police is reporting on the amount of
23 weaponry that it has seized from various individuals.
24 Q. Thank you. Can we have page 6 in Serbian, and I believe it's the
25 same page in English, and there we're going to find the list of names and
Page 16529
1 their ethnicities.
2 Let's look at nationalities. Serbian, Muslim, Serb, Serb,
3 Muslim, Serb, Serb, Serb, Croat, Serb, Serb, Croat, Croat, others,
4 probably Ukrainian or somebody else, Serb, Croat, Croat, Albanian, Serb,
5 Muslim, then three Croats.
6 Next page, please.
7 Muslim, Muslim, Serb, Muslim, three Croats, Muslim, Croat, Serb,
8 and finally five Muslims.
9 And we need the next page in English.
10 And there's a remark at the bottom. It says that they were
11 arrested and placed in custody on the ground, that there was suspicion
12 that they were preparing armed rebellion by procuring and hiding it --
13 obtaining -- TO. Public prosecutor redefined this criminal offence into
14 illegal possession of arms, which is a lighter offence than armed
15 rebellion. Would you agree with me?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Next page, please. In both languages, and I think that's the
18 very end of the document. And under number 31 we can see that criminal
19 reports were filed against four Muslims, and we have a Muslim, a Croat, a
20 Serb, Albanian, and so on.
21 Do you see that this was signed by Vladimir Tutus and that there
22 are quite a few Serbs here who had been disarmed?
23 A. I agree that's what the document shows. May I please see the
24 first page of the document again? The next page. The first page of the
25 list, actually, of persons.
Page 16530
1 Q. Six in Serbian. I believe that's the case in English as well.
2 A. Well, as an analyst, one comment that I would just like to add to
3 this document, and I agree that it shows what you say that it shows, is
4 that if we look at the column in which it is stated whether those persons
5 who had possession of illegal weapons were also detained, there we see an
6 interesting pattern that for most of the Serbs in this document they were
7 not detained, whereas most of the persons of other nationality who were
8 also charged with the same crime, they were, in fact, detained for some
9 period. So I think that is a significant point to draw out in this
10 document as well.
11 Q. The next page now, please, so that you can see that a Serb was
12 detained too. Do you agree that they did not expect the Serbs to start
13 an armed rebellion, but they did expect the Muslims and the Croats to do
14 that, and that was a sufficient reason for detention; right? You see
15 this here? Klasnja, Nenad, a Serb from Laktasi, detained. Number 6.
16 A. I certainly agree with you that the authorities of the Serbian
17 Republic did not expect Serbs to start or engage in any armed resistance
18 against that republic, and in the isolated cases in which Serbs did
19 engage in any such resistance, the authorities, based on the
20 documentation I have reviewed, were often quite confused as to what to do
21 about such resistance, whereas in the case of Croats and Muslims who were
22 resisted the authority of the Serbian Republic, there as you, yourself,
23 noted, that was sufficient reason for detention in most cases.
24 Q. Can we look at the last page, another Serb detained as well,
25 Dubravko Kuzmanovic. The last page, 34. Do you agree?
Page 16531
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Thank you.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
4 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
5 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1543, Your Honours.
6 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
7 Q. Can we now have 65 ter 21816. Please cast a glance at this. All
8 of these are Serbs; right? Copic, Dusan; Asic [phoen], Dragoljub;
9 Gordana Petrakovic, see, even she has a pistol, but it was taken because
10 a murder was committed; Cedo Stevandic, it was confiscated because he was
11 carrying it without a permit. And then further down you see hunting guns
12 and a carbine, the last one, Majstorovic. He had a carbine. All 17 of
13 them were Serbs; right?
14 A. I will take your word for it that all of the people on this list
15 are Serbs. I would note however that in many cases it appears that these
16 people had their weapons confiscated as early as 1986 in the case of the
17 fourth person on the list, for example, and a lot of the other
18 confiscations of weapons here appear to have taken place -- well, there's
19 even one from 1978. There are several people here who have weapons
20 confiscated from them long before the war. So this appears to, by and
21 large, be dealing with weapons confiscations that have nothing to do with
22 what is going on in 1992.
23 Q. But he is answering, replying to this telegram, and you are
24 right, they -- but they're all Serbs; right? They didn't return them to
25 say the least. If they confiscated them in 1991, they did not return
Page 16532
1 them; right?
2 A. Well, they certainly didn't return them to person number 14 since
3 she apparently committed suicide, but as for the rest of the people on
4 this document, it's clear it appears that they still have these weapons
5 in their possession. What I would as an analyst want to know here would
6 be to go to the dispatch that the chief of the police in Drvar has, at
7 some point, received. In fact, on the 3rd of November 1992 received from
8 CSB Banja Luka. He is responding to some sort of request and I would be
9 interested to go back to that CSB Banja Luka dispatch and find out what
10 was the exact question or type of information that the SJB in Drvar was
11 asked to provide.
12 Q. Thank you. I hope that we are going to come across that
13 dispatch.
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
15 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
16 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1544, Your Honours.
17 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
18 Q. Thank you. Can we now have 65 ter 183110 [as interpreted].
19 Simo Drljaca is referring to the dispatch of the 3rd of November,
20 and he says: We hereby inform you that for the time being this public
21 security station has not confiscated any weapons on any grounds. You'll
22 be duly informed if and when that happens.
23 So the question was probably: What have you kept? What seized
24 weapons have you kept? Does that sound right to you?
25 A. That would be my inference as well.
Page 16533
1 Q. Thank you.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
3 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
4 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1545, Your Honours.
5 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
6 Q. Can we now have 65 ter 18312.
7 This is from Bosansko Grahovo. It's also a reply to the dispatch
8 dated the 9th of November, and it says that "we currently have the
9 following weapons that have been seized." This seems to be a telegram
10 that is asking for results, the results of the seizure or confiscation of
11 weapons and which ones have been retained. So there is one person here
12 who committed suicide - I'm not going to mention his name - so an
13 automatic weapon was taken when another person committed suicide, and
14 then there is this pistol when there was an attempted murder, and then,
15 again, can you not see that all of them are Serbs, Ilija Branko, son of
16 Obrad, Simo, Borisa, Stana. Nine, Stana, she has a soldier's rifle.
17 There is this old granny who has a rifle. Will not give way. Jovanka.
18 She must be a Serb too. And Grizelj, maybe they can be Croats. Have you
19 come across this document anywhere? Not a single Muslim.
20 A. I note that this document has an ERN number beginning with a B
21 which indicates to me that it's from the OTP's Banja Luka collection, so
22 I can tell you right away that I have reviewed this document because I
23 reviewed all 143.000 pages in that collection.
24 As regards the specific document's content, I agree that it shows
25 weapons that are being confiscated on the grounds of illegal possession
Page 16534
1 in a number of cases because there is a suspicion that those weapons have
2 been used to commit crimes, in some cases suicides, in some cases might
3 be used to commit crimes in the future and therefore being confiscated.
4 And I agree with you that there are no names on this list of 14 or so
5 people who are Muslims. I would point out that that might, given the
6 date of this document, have something to do with the fact that there were
7 not that many Muslims left in that municipality at that time but that's
8 conjecture on my part as I'm not familiar with the demographics at that
9 instance in time of that municipality.
10 Q. Thank you. Can this be admitted?
11 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
12 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1546, Your Honours.
13 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation].
14 Q. 65 ter 00299. They're reporting from Kotor Varos in reference to
15 the same requests on the 3rd and the 18th of November. These people are
16 replying on the 1st of December and saying what has been seized and if
17 you look at the names there's Christian and Muslim names, there's a mix;
18 do you agree? There are Serbs and Croats and Muslims.
19 A. Yes, I agree.
20 Q. Next page, please. There are quite a few persons unknown. This
21 must have happened during combat. NN means unknown; right?
22 A. Yes, that's correct.
23 Q. Thank you. Can we have the last page. We see the stamp and the
24 signature, and we see that 131 items are there -- or, rather, 131 weapons
25 that were seized from Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. Do you agree?
Page 16535
1 A. Yes, I agree with you. I would note that there are a relatively
2 large number of hunting rifles that were confiscated here, and one thing
3 that is quite interesting in the document is that it appears that in this
4 case or in a number of cases of these 131 weapons, they were confiscated
5 even though it says in the right-hand column that the owners had weapons
6 permits for those weapons.
7 Q. I agree, but does it not seem to you that the owners themselves
8 surrendered these weapons? Look at this one, automatic rifle, Spagin,
9 unknown owner. Probably without a permit, and as for the rest, it's
10 probably the owners themselves that came and handed over their weapons
11 when the police station called for that. No one probably wanted to hand
12 over an automatic rifle. They just cast them away as this Spagin did.
13 Would you agree?
14 A. I think that's conjecture, but I can see why you would engage in
15 such conjecture.
16 Q. Thank you.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted.
18 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
19 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1547, Your Honours.
20 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
21 Q. Can we have just two more documents and then we're done with this
22 topic. 65 ter 18315.
23 It's the Bihac station. It's probably the Serb municipality of
24 Bihac and the Serb station of Bihac and all of these people are Serbs and
25 automatic rifles were taken from them. Jecmenica, Nikola; Petrovic,
Page 16536
1 Ratko; Arsic, Bane; ah, there is one Muslim: Smajo Kavaz from Sarajevo.
2 Then Zorica Medakovic and as a matter of fact, even this Smajo was in a
3 group that identified themselves as members of the Serb guard, but they
4 were caught committing a robbery. And then Mico Gogic's hunting gun was
5 taken away. He was from Bihac. And he was disturbing public law and
6 order. This was probably celebratory gunfire and that is why they took
7 away his rifle, because of this offence.
8 Would you agree with the way I have portrayed this document?
9 Also, it is only Smajo Kavaz who is a Muslim; right? All the rest are
10 Serbs.
11 A. I agree that you have accurately summarised the document.
12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
13 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
14 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1548, Your Honours.
15 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Another one -- actually, two more. 65 ter 18316. This is
17 Krupa Na Uni, the former Bosanska Krupa, so it's the right bank of the
18 Una. It is their public security station, and these are Serbs, Majkic.
19 Their weapons were seized. Do you agree that Veljko, Sojka, and Uros are
20 Serb names?
21 A. I agree.
22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] In English, could we please have
23 the next page for the benefit of the other participants. Thank you. Can
24 this be admitted?
25 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
Page 16537
1 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1549, Your Honours.
2 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
3 Q. 18308, just that one, and then we should be done. Again, there's
4 a reference to the dispatch of the 3rd and 18th of November, and this is
5 a reply to this dispatch. First, it is Smajkanovic Emir, who is a
6 Muslim. Secondly, Momir Vujancevic, a Serb, an automatic rifle was taken
7 away from him. Enes Meldic, a Muslim. Four, Pante Devic, a Serb.
8 Goran Milisavic, a Serb and Gostimir Maric, a Serb. Do you agree?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Serbs in the lead, 4 to 2, as far as this disarming is concerned;
11 right?
12 A. In this particular document that is the case, yes.
13 Q. Thank you.
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
15 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
16 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1550, Your Honours.
17 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
18 Q. Thank you. Could we now briefly have a look at D474.
19 I believe that you've already seen this document where
20 Stojan Zupljanin is forwarding an order for Minister Stanisic to public
21 security stations for the umpteenth time probably. This is an order
22 stating that civilians, refugees should only be treated on the basis of
23 the law and international law and international convention, et cetera.
24 The last sentence says:
25 "... it is necessary to proceed immediately with gathering
Page 16538
1 information and documentation in order to submit a criminal report to the
2 competent Office of the Prosecutor."
3 Have you seen this document?
4 A. If I may be permitted to refresh your memory. We dealt with this
5 document earlier today, and as I noted, it's dealt with in paragraph 311
6 of my report.
7 Q. Oh, you're probably right. We dealt with the minister's
8 document, but this is Zupljanin now forwarding that same document. Well,
9 yes, you're right. Thank you.
10 65 ter 18419. Can we have a look at that, please.
11 JUDGE KWON: Did we deal with that document today?
12 THE WITNESS: Your Honour, the document that was just on the
13 screen a moment ago was a document that I comment -- commented on this
14 morning. It's possible that it was with a different 65 ter number.
15 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. Let's proceed.
16 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
17 Q. Have you seen this document where Zupljanin is addressing all the
18 chiefs of all the public security stations, and he is asking them to do
19 the following -- look at the third paragraph. There is some information
20 indicating isolated individuals might be attacked or threatened in some
21 way after their return to their home areas, so those who had been in
22 detention. He's saying once they are released and returned there, that
23 their safety should be ensured.
24 Do you remember this document?
25 A. Yes. I have a very clear recollection of this document, which is
Page 16539
1 footnoted in footnote 459 in my report, again paragraph 311.
2 Q. Thank you.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
4 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
5 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1551, Your Honours.
6 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
7 Q. 65 ter 18419. Can we have that, please. I beg your pardon.
8 This is a translation of the one we've had just now.
9 65 ter 55980.
10 JUDGE KWON: Would you repeat the number.
11 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
12 Q. 5598. 05598. Do you agree that Zupljanin is asking here for a
13 selection to be carried out amongst the detainees. If proceedings are
14 not going to be initiated against persons for whom there is no evidence,
15 they should be released, and civilian authorities should take care of
16 them, and you are probably familiar with this document as well.
17 A. Indeed, it is the next footnote in my report, footnote 460, again
18 paragraph 311.
19 Q. Thank you.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
21 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
22 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1552, Your Honours.
23 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
24 Q. Can we now have 65 ter 5506.
25 Are you familiar with this document dated the 23rd of June, and
Page 16540
1 what is mentioned here is that during a regular check during a police
2 patrol a certain number of policemen, as they were checking traffic and
3 passengers and their property, and there's a reference to all their
4 names, the driver and the other person who was in the car, and on the
5 basis of the behaviour of the passengers and when they examined the
6 luggage that was there the policemen checked it in detail.
7 Do you remember this document? A large number of foreign
8 currency. These persons admitted to the policemen that they were
9 reselling foreign currency, and so on and so forth.
10 A. Yes, I am familiar with this document.
11 Q. Thank you. We're still dealing with the CSB Banja Luka. We
12 haven't moved on to the public security stations yet.
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this document be admitted?
14 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Ms. Sutherland.
15 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, I have no objection to the
16 document, but I think it should go for revised translation, because the
17 date appears to be missing, the 23rd of June, 1992, under the "brod,"
18 number, in the English translation.
19 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. Yes, we'll admit this with that caveat.
20 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit D1553, Your Honours.
21 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
22 Q. Can we now have 65 ter 17755.
23 Do you agree that in the first paragraph here it says that the
24 army is again asking for the active and reserve police to be actively
25 involved in protecting the corridor and at other front lines too? Are
Page 16541
1 you familiar with this document?
2 A. Yes, I am familiar with this document, and I agree that that is
3 what it says.
4 Q. The second paragraph it says that the number of reserve policemen
5 has been reduced to the lowest possible level so that those who are
6 released could be sent to the army.
7 Do you agree?
8 And then further on in the next paragraph it says that the area
9 of the centre is threatened by a large number of sabotage groups of
10 varying sizes, attacks from dispersed enemy formations, increasingly
11 evident forms of war profiteering, criminal activities of individuals
12 with the most serious consequences, daily threat to citizens' personal
13 security and property, and other types of threat and disturbance. The
14 general public knows about the group atrocities committed by enemy forces
15 again the civilian populations in Prijedor, Sanski Most, Skender Vakuf,
16 Jajce, Kotor Varos, and other locations.
17 Do you know, Dr. Nielsen, that at the end of September there were
18 still groups, hostile enemy groups, in depth of Serb-controlled territory
19 and that they were still killing people?
20 A. I am familiar with the fact that the police during this period is
21 still reporting on the existence of such operations, and this is one of a
22 number of documents that deals with that topic.
23 Q. Thank you.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
25 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
Page 16542
1 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1554, Your Honours.
2 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation].
3 Q. Can we now see 65 ter 18405.
4 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: Could Dr. Karadzic please
5 slow down when reading from a document. Thank you.
6 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, you are reminded yet again by the
7 interpreters to slow down when you're reading out documents.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
9 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
10 Q. Are you familiar with this document which was issued on the 19th
11 of September? This is a minister's order on safekeeping deposits, i.e.,
12 safekeeping confiscated goods and issuing receipts and also on handling
13 confiscated goods in a legally prescribed way. The title is: Reference
14 order by the minister of the interior. And the contents are what I've
15 just told you, and that is the courts need to be notified about
16 confiscations of goods and certificates have to be issued and so on and
17 so forth.
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Thank you.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
21 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
22 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1555, Your Honours.
23 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
24 Q. Can we now see 65 ter 18472.
25 I believe that you are also familiar with this document, which
Page 16543
1 was issued on the 19th of October. This is a -- an official note dealing
2 with the activities of the Radical Party clashes, misunderstandings
3 between the military police and the civilian police, and it says here
4 that the main initiators Tomo Delic, a former SDS activist and so on and
5 so forth. And further down, it says: The current conflict between the
6 army and the civilian police is becoming worse every day. Lieutenants --
7 Lieutenant-Colonels Oljaca and Kamber have been involved in shady
8 dealings. Now you can see how Serbs are involved in mutual slandering
9 each other; right?
10 A. I don't know that I would agree that they're involved in mutual
11 slander, but it's clear that at this point in time and, indeed, as
12 witnessed in other documents for a significant period before that, there
13 are a lot of conflicts among some very strong and ambitious
14 personalities. In many cases, this relates to the issue of war
15 profiteering which it is dealt with here, where it is clear that a number
16 of individuals - I would say a considerable number of individuals - very
17 diligently used the situation brought upon by armed conflict to enrich
18 themselves.
19 Q. Can we go no the next page in Serbian and in English. We can
20 already see it in the penultimate paragraph towards the end, where it
21 says that Muslims are being helped to cross over to the Croatian
22 territory in exchange for money. And then it says around 20.000 Muslims
23 have moved out of this region and the remaining 10.000 or so wish to do
24 the same, because of the feeling of uncertainty and lack of safety, and
25 this is due to the wilful behaviour of individuals and groups who abuse
Page 16544
1 citizens of Muslim background. I'm reading in Serbian.
2 Do you see all that?
3 A. Yes, I see that passage and I deal with a similar topic in
4 paragraph 352 of my report where I discuss the awareness of the
5 RS National Security Service of the departure -- of what they called
6 massive departures, in their own words, of Muslims and Croats from
7 Prijedor municipality. This is a case here where we, again, see an
8 awareness of the departure of large numbers of Muslims from territory
9 under the control of the Serbian Republic, and it contributes, together
10 with other documents that I've been able to review, to an overall
11 situation in which the police, as I stated previously in my testimony,
12 either was unwilling or unable to provide adequate security to citizens
13 of the RS who were not of Serbian nationality, and that is reflected
14 here.
15 Q. Do you agree that it says in the penultimate paragraph that they
16 are being transferred to Croatia in exchange for money, and do you agree
17 that police officials record that? They do not attempt to sweep that
18 under the carpet.
19 A. In the case of this document that appears to be the case. There
20 are other documents about the departure of Muslims and Croats from the
21 territory of the RS in which it seems to be the case that certain persons
22 were involved at the municipal level in confiscating or charging those
23 persons before they were permitted to leave the territory of those
24 municipalities, charging in the sense of charging them money.
25 Q. Thank you. However, we do agree that the operatives have a
Page 16545
1 negative attitude towards that, that they record the events and that they
2 report on them; right?
3 A. That is correct, and again I would refer the Court to paragraphs
4 352, 353, and 354 of my report where I deal with similar reports by the
5 National Security Service published in 1992 and 1993 -- or not published
6 but produced. These were very confidential documents at the time.
7 Q. Thank you.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
9 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
10 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1556, Your Honours.
11 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
12 Q. Can we now see 65 ter 05676.
13 Are you familiar with this report covering the period from April
14 to the end of 1992 for the security services centre in Banja Luka?
15 A. Yes, I am very familiar with this document. I believe that I
16 cite it repeatedly in my report, and I would note that the contents of
17 this document, when read in conjunction with the draft 1992 annual report
18 of RS MUP, show that much of the information pertaining to the area of
19 CSB Banja Luka, that ends up in the draft annual report stems from this
20 report here.
21 Q. Thank you. Can we go to page 3. It actually may be page 2 in
22 English. It says here the public security sector, and I'm looking at
23 line 5 or 6, where it says that extremist activities by groups and
24 individuals is aimed at undermining social order, sabotage and terrorist
25 activities are targeted -- are targeting facilities and civilians.
Page 16546
1 There are incidents undermining public law and order. There are
2 attacks against police officials. There is a large-scale social
3 disobedience. Rumours are being spread. The greatest forms of crime are
4 rising in numbers. There are other forms of socially destructive
5 behaviour, and so on and so forth.
6 This is a terrible image. Does this reflect what you noted as
7 conditions prevailing amongst our population at that time?
8 A. I believe that this document is an accurate reflection of the
9 cumulative state of the security situation on the territory of CSB
10 Banja Luka during this period. It accurately collates and summarises
11 information contained in other documents produced in the period from
12 April to December 1992 by CSB Banja Luka.
13 As regards the exact choice of words and expressions by the
14 authors of this document, I would note that they were very deliberate in
15 their choice of referring to certain activities as being of a terrorist
16 or sabotage nature and others of -- of being -- of -- of a more lawful
17 nature. And I have to admit that I was halfway expecting you to tell me
18 whether you also thought that the illegal arming that's referred to here
19 was in the spirit of the Partisan tradition or whether it is a case that
20 the police is duplicitous in its -- or inconsistent in its use of the
21 term "illegal."
22 Q. Thank you. Well, you saw that the public prosecutor changes the
23 qualification of the crimes reported to him. We saw it in one of the
24 documents where it says preparations for rebellion is what he called
25 unlawful possession of weapons. Wouldn't you agree with me that the
Page 16547
1 police do not have the last say in all that?
2 A. I agree that when the police has an investigative finding that
3 indicates that illegal activities have been occurring, then that
4 information ultimately is transferred to the public prosecutor who can
5 decide whether to follow up on those charges, change the nature of those
6 charges, or drop the charges entirely. My comment here was perhaps
7 insufficiently clear. Let me state it very explicitly:
8 What I think I'm referring to here is that there is a tendency to
9 refer to the arming of the Croat and Muslim population as being illegal,
10 whereas the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the RS in referring to its
11 own activities or activities carried out in conjunction with the SDS
12 prior to April 1992 in arming Serbs also refers to those activities as
13 being illegal, but they are rendered somehow legal in the eyes of the
14 RS MUP once that entity, the Republika Srpska, is established.
15 Q. Thank you. Can we look at the following page in Serbian, and
16 perhaps it is the next page in English as well. Let's see what it says
17 with regard to the following page in Serbian.
18 There has been an escalation of sabotage and terrorist activity
19 and illegal arming of Muslim and Croatian extremists. You would agree
20 with me, Dr. Nielsen, that the Serb police did not expect the Serbs who
21 were in possession of illegally obtained weapons they would organise
22 themselves and turn against their own authorities, whereas they expected
23 that from Muslim and Croat Serbs and their expectations proved to be
24 justified. Would you say that therein lie the difference?
25 A. I would tend to agree with you that such were the assumptions in
Page 16548
1 the minds of the police officers of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and
2 Herzegovina at that time, and I would note that it was precisely such
3 assumptions that proved very consequential for the population, and
4 particularly the non-Serb population, of the RS.
5 Q. Let's look at page 6 in Serbian where a reference is made to
6 illegally armed Serbs, what is expected from them, and what they do.
7 Look at the paragraph starting with the following words:
8 "Under the conditions of radical aggravation and constant
9 complication of the security situation, criminal activities by armed
10 groups and individuals of Serb ethnic -- ethnicity has escalated, and
11 activities of criminal groups and individuals leave an impression of
12 anarchy among the general public which undermines the reputation and
13 leads to the creation of mistrust towards the legal institutions of the
14 system. There are break-ins and unlawful appropriation of different
15 goods under the threat of arms ...," and so on and so forth.
16 So they are aware that Muslim and Croat armed groups pose one
17 kind of threat, and that Serb armed groups and individuals pose a
18 different kind of threat; right?
19 A. I would not comment on that statement other than to say that I
20 think this document and the language it uses speaks for itself.
21 Q. The following paragraph also speaks about Serbs, groups, and
22 individuals whose goal is to win power in an illegal way. And the last
23 sentence says -- can we see the next page in English. Undertaking
24 measures and activities keeps under control and then the following
25 paragraph in -- on the same page speaks about the hooliganism, vandalism
Page 16549
1 and other forms of destructive behaviour, which are under the strong
2 influence by war and political events and very often develop into a
3 phenomenon bordering on escalation out of control.
4 So what is said here is that the behaviour of Serb or -- Serbian
5 criminals and renegades is also closely monitored and kept under control.
6 A. For the entire period from April 1992 to December or the end of
7 1992, it is absolutely clear in the documents produced by RS MUP that all
8 kinds of criminality, everything from personal physical assault to
9 burglaries to grand theft auto to, essentially, rapes, all kinds of
10 criminality, increased dramatically across the territory of the
11 Serbian Republic, and the police was very, very concerned about how to
12 get that situation under control and to re-establish some kind of law and
13 order on the territory of the Serbian Republic. That is reflected in
14 this document, and it's reflected in other documents.
15 What is categorically different in the documentation that I've
16 been able to review is the types of measures that were taken by the
17 police with respect to what you, in your question, call destructive
18 behaviour when such behaviour was engaged in by persons of Serb ethnicity
19 as opposed to the types of measures, many of them pre-emptive or
20 proactive, to say the very least, that were taken by the same police
21 force with respect to persons of Muslim and Croat ethnicity.
22 Q. Let's look at page 10 in Serbian.
23 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters would appreciate the correct
24 page reference in English as well.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I believe that we're on the right
Page 16550
1 page in English. I believe that we're on the right page in English.
2 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
3 Q. Let us look how many criminal reports were submitted to the
4 public prosecutor's office. A total of 6.802 criminal reports against
5 3.887 persons were filed with the competent prosecutors' offices. Of the
6 total number of those reported, 586 person or 15 per cent --
7 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter cannot interpret figures at
8 such speed.
9 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, the interpreters couldn't follow.
10 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
11 Q. Seven thousand and six hundred and eighty crimes were perpetrated
12 by unknown perpetrators of which 3.512 were detected subsequently. Out
13 of the total number of crimes, 4.166 were not elucidated, which is
14 50.7 per cent were detected.
15 Do you agree that a large number of criminal reports, 6.802,
16 during the nine-month period is quite a large number? Would you agree
17 with that?
18 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: Could Dr. Karadzic provide
19 references when reading [overlapping speakers].
20 A. It is certainly a considerably number of criminal reports, and as
21 the police indicates, I believe, elsewhere in this document and in
22 documents we saw earlier today, they were aware of the fact that even
23 with such large numbers this was most likely a significant underreporting
24 of the total amount of crime that was being committed during that period.
25 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
Page 16551
1 Q. We are on page 10. Please look at the fact that 46 crimes were
2 committed against humanity and international law. Do you see that last
3 paragraph?
4 JUDGE KWON: Yes. Yes, Mr. Tieger.
5 MR. TIEGER: I had simply wanted to pass on as a courtesy to the
6 interpreters their request that references to the document be provided,
7 but it seems that Mr. Karadzic is now doing that.
8 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
9 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
10 Q. Yes, yes. Page 10, the last paragraph preceding the title
11 "General Crimes." Do you agree that 46 criminal offences were registered
12 pursuant to Chapter XVII of the Penal Code of Yugoslavia and those were
13 crimes against humanity and international law which were committed in
14 Teslic, Kupres, Knezevo and Kotor Varos and that 47 criminal reports were
15 filed. And Sanski Most and Prijedor were excluded from this; is that
16 right?
17 A. That is what the document states, yes.
18 Q. Thank you.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I note the time. Can this be
20 admitted?
21 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
22 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1557, Your Honours.
23 JUDGE KWON: We'll continue tomorrow. How much do you think you
24 need to conclude your cross-examination, Mr. Karadzic?
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Your Excellency, I have a lot of
Page 16552
1 documents. We will complete with the security centres and move on to the
2 public security stations to see what they did. I hope to be able to
3 finish within the next two sessions.
4 JUDGE KWON: Given the time used by the Prosecution and the
5 importance of the subject matter, the Chamber is minded to give you one
6 more session tomorrow, that's it. And in the meantime, I'm going to come
7 to the issue that we dealt with last Wednesday as to the admission of an
8 intercept to which, i.e., 65 ter number 30115 to which Mr. Robinson
9 objected to.
10 While it is true that parties should, to the greatest extent
11 possible, endeavour to use intercepts with witnesses who are participants
12 in the intercepted conversations, this does not mean that -- that
13 intercepts that were not so used cannot subsequently be marked for
14 identification. I should also note that Mr. Robinson -- that the Defence
15 itself has tendered a Mandic intercept following Mandic's testimony,
16 which was then MFI'd by the Chamber.
17 So accordingly, the Chamber will mark it for identification. We
18 will give the number.
19 THE REGISTRAR: MFI P2999, Your Honours.
20 JUDGE KWON: So tomorrow we'll finish your evidence,
21 Mr. Nielsen -- Dr. Nielsen.
22 Tomorrow morning at 9.00.
23 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 3.01 p.m.,
24 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 14th day
25 of July, 2011, at 9.00 a.m.