Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 28628

 1                           Wednesday, 13 June 2012

 2                           [Rule 98 bis Hearing]

 3                           [Open session]

 4                           [The accused entered court]

 5                           --- Upon commencing at 9.03 a.m.

 6             JUDGE KWON:  Good morning, everyone.

 7             Today we'll hear the Prosecution's response to the Defence

 8     Rule 98 bis submission.

 9             Yes, Mr. Tieger.

10             MR. TIEGER:  Thank you, Mr. President.  Good morning.  Good

11     morning, Your Honours, everyone in and around the courtroom.

12             Mr. President and Your Honours, I will respond to the 98 bis

13     submissions in the following order:  First, addressing the three

14     components in the order of municipalities, Sarajevo, Srebrenica and then

15     addressing the submissions with respect to Count 1 and with respect to

16     Count 11.

17             During the course of some of my references, we'll have occasion

18     to make reference to either evidence elicited during closed session or

19     evidence that is under seal.  Rather than moving repeatedly in and out of

20     private session and public session, it's my intention to attempt to

21     paraphrase or synopsise that evidence in a manner that doesn't intrude on

22     the confidentiality concerns, if that is permissible with the Court.

23             JUDGE KWON:  Chamber sees no problem, Mr. Tieger.

24             MR. TIEGER:  Thank you, Mr. President.

25             JUDGE KWON:  There's no objection from the Defence either.


Page 28629

 1             MR. ROBINSON:  That's correct, Mr. President.

 2             JUDGE KWON:  Yes, Mr. Tieger.

 3             MR. TIEGER:  Mr. President and Your Honours, I'd like to move

 4     forward now to address some of the specific assertions with respect to

 5     Counts 3 through 8, focussing on events in municipalities in particular

 6     including -- and in Srebrenica in some respects.  But before addressing

 7     some of the specific assertions and, indeed, misrepresentations made

 8     during the course of the Defence submissions, I'd like to note that all

 9     of those are made against the backdrop of evidence that demonstrates

10     overwhelmingly that the Prosecution submissions and the indictment have

11     been more than amply satisfied.  And that evidence includes the

12     following.

13             First, the accused sought an ethnically pure state or a state as

14     ethnically pure as he could make it.  And in that respect, you can turn

15     to the evidence of Ambassador Okun [Realtime transcript read in error

16     "Owe"] who explained that one of the Bosnian Serb war-time goals "as

17     enunciated to us directly" was to have their own state that would be as

18     ethnically pure Serb or as overwhelmingly Bosnian Serb as they could make

19     it.  That's P776 and also at transcript reference 4157 through 58.

20             He noted that the Bosnian Serb side was quite open and honest

21     with us about these goals.  And thank's at T1475.

22             Now, of course, as Ambassador Okun also point out there was "no

23     way that you could separate the peoples expect by force."

24             You'll find that at T4354 through 55 and that's exactly what the

25     Bosnian Serb forces set about doing.


Page 28630

 1             You can also find similar references in the testimony of

 2     David Harland who explained that the accused openly said that the basic

 3     war aim was to redistribute the population of Bosnia-Herzegovina so that

 4     the Serbs would be left in control of a single contiguous block of

 5     territory embracing the whole of the border with Serbia and Montenegro

 6     and also many areas that they deemed traditionally Serb.

 7             JUDGE KWON:  Mr. Tieger, can I interrupt for one moment.  For the

 8     record, lines 15 and 21 of previous pages, "Ambassador Owe" should read

 9     O-k-u-n.

10             MR. TIEGER:  Thank you, Mr. President.  That is correct.

11             That reference to Mr. Harland is found at P820, paragraph 269.

12     He also noted that the purpose of the continual pressure applied by the

13     accused to extract concessions from the Bosnian Serb government was to

14     force an acceptance of the redistribution of the populations; that is,

15     the "ethnic cleansing" that had been achieved by the Bosnian Serb forces.

16     See paragraph 270.

17             And you'll also find from the evidence of Witness KDZ240 that the

18     accused openly explained that the objective was the control by the

19     Bosnian Serbs of a vast amount, 70 per cent, of Bosnia's territory with a

20     homogenous population of Serbs.  You can find that also at P2935 at

21     page 6752.

22             Now, those were goals that were communicated, promulgated to the

23     accused's followers.  As one example among many in the vast amount of

24     evidence you have, you can turn to a statement by one of the delegates of

25     the Assembly at the 34th Session of the Bosnian Serbs Assembly at page 33


Page 28631

 1     through 34 who was responding to complaints by fellow delegates about the

 2     amount of territory that the Serbs might -- Bosnian Serbs might be

 3     allocated.  And he suggested that they compare their gains and losses

 4     with the gains and losses of the Muslims and Croats and concluded:

 5             "Gentlemen there is no Serbian state in the Bosnian pot without

 6     gradual depopulation and relocating.  If we want ethnically pure Serbian

 7     state, and we do, don't we, if we all know and emphasise that we cannot

 8     live with them then we have to realise that these draft maps are offering

 9     exactly that and there has to be relocation."

10             Now, I alluded to the fact that this ethnically pure state, this

11     homogenisation, this redistribution of populations was to take place over

12     a vast amount of territory.  And perhaps we can take a quick look at a

13     few visual images that capture the extent of the territory that the

14     accused considered to be Bosnian Serb and that had to be subjected to

15     this need for homogenisation.

16             First, we see a video image of the accused close confidant and

17     compatriot, Mr. Krajisnik, standing before an ethnic map that captures

18     the -- or reflects the territory taken, held and conquered by the Bosnian

19     Serbs by late 1992.  And as you can see from the horseshoe image, it

20     indeed covers the amount of territory that the accused said and if you

21     look to the previous references I made with respect to -- to -- to KDZ240

22     will you find that that is what the accused was saying in April, the

23     beginning of the -- the commencement of the conflict was to be Bosnian

24     Serb territory.  And keep that image in mind when we turn to the other

25     images which are reflections of - and that's P2561 - the map depicting


Page 28632

 1     the strategic objectives.  So you can see objective 2 that covers the

 2     northern part of Bosnia and Herzegovina; 3, that covers the eastern part;

 3     4, you'll see down in the south-eastern part and also in the west, the

 4     Una, and, of course, you're familiar with Sarajevo.  And then if we can

 5     turn to the ethnic map, one of the ethnic maps of Bosnia and Herzegovina,

 6     that's P797, I believe.  You can see, for example, on the eastern part

 7     how that map depicts who lives in those areas.  The green reflects a

 8     Muslim majority area, Muslim majority of such places as you see on the

 9     map as Bratunac, Srebrenica, Zvornik, Vlasenica, et cetera.

10             And it's instructive to turn to a statement by the accused at the

11     53rd Bosnian Serb Assembly Session at pages 68 through 69 - and just for

12     the record this map is P783 - he said -- and that was an assembly session

13     in 1995.  And this is what the accused had to say about that area:

14             "To tell the truth, there are towns we grabbed for ourselves and

15     there were only 30 per cent of us.  I can name as many of those as you

16     want, but we cannot give up the towns we made up of 70 per cent.  Don't

17     there let this get around, but remember how many of us there were in

18     Bratunac, how many in Srebrenica, how many in Visegrad, how many in

19     Rogatica, how many in Vlasenica, in Zvornik, et cetera.  Due to strategic

20     importance they had to become ours and no one is practically questioning

21     it anymore."

22             So very quickly that depicts the areas that were sought by the

23     accused and the objectives for those areas.  And who was the accused as

24     we've learned very clearly?  He was the supreme commander, not just the

25     supreme political leader but also the supreme military leader of


Page 28633

 1     Republika Srpska; first, of the Bosnian Serb movement in the form of the

 2     SDS and then in its formal structures.

 3             And for that, you have a wealth of evidence.  You can turn to

 4     such evidence as the testimony of General Milovanovic at transcript pages

 5     25444 through 445, who said:

 6             "The one and only superior of General Ratko Mladic was

 7     Dr. Radovan Karadzic, president of the republic.  Dr. Radovan Karadzic

 8     was the supreme commander of the armed forces of Republika Srpska."

 9             And then he explained what that meant.  That meant that he

10     commanded the army through Ministry of Interior.  He commanded the police

11     and indeed he commanded through the man who was in charge of civil

12     protection, the civilian protection.

13             You heard from General Srkbic, another member of the Main Staff,

14     at transcript pages 26023, through 24, that the accused was the supreme

15     commander in both peacetime and war time.

16             General Gvero at the 19th Session of the Bosnian-Serb Assembly at

17     pages 63 through 64 outlined the basic elements of the chain of command,

18     and basically the elements are the president of the republic.  At the

19     time it was the Presidency as the supreme commander.  All the elements of

20     the defence and the army are subordinated to this institution.

21             At the 34th Session of the Bosnian Serb Assembly at pages 315,

22     General Mladic made clear that there wasn't a single order of the accused

23     he hadn't obeyed.  At the same session, one of the delegates,

24     Mr. Milanovic, noted that the accused had taken on supreme executive and

25     all other power upon himself and questioned whether that was a sensible


Page 28634

 1     thing to do since maybe he couldn't do everything.  The accused himself

 2     made it clear.  At the 39th Session pages 85 through 86, he said:

 3             "I am in charge, in particular of the army.  Commanders report to

 4     me, commander of the Main Staff and commanders of corps and brigades.  I

 5     am the one who signs, who decides and I will be responsible for each

 6     decision."

 7             You can also look at P3041 where there's a document from

 8     General Milovanovic indicating that orders can only come from the

 9     Main Staff and from the supreme commander of the RS armed forces, that

10     is, Dr. Karadzic and from nobody else.

11             And we know what those forces did.  As just the tip of the

12     iceberg, I turn the Court's attention of testimonies of three individuals

13     and I have you look at, for example, P0457, page 43, which reflects the

14     "ciscenje" of the Brdo area in Prijedor during which thousands of Muslims

15     were rounded up by the VRS and police.  And "ciscenje" which is

16     traditionally translated here as either mopping up or cleansing, or, on

17     some occasions, the translators carefully note mopping up or cleansing.

18     The witness explained that in this instances, "ciscenje" meant

19     specifically that the Muslim population had to be removed.

20             Or turn to P3634 at page 72 which discusses the "cleansing of

21     various villages in Sanski Most and the expulsion of "all the Muslims" by

22     the VRS.

23             Or turn to P3227 which describes the cleansing by the joint

24     forces of the VRS and the police of various villages in Vlasenica,

25     including the roundup of all Muslims, the routine killing of males and


Page 28635

 1     the burning of houses.  And you can look at page 12 for that.  And makes

 2     reference to the explanation by a commander, "Well" -- about why the

 3     burning:

 4             "Well, can you see for yourselves that if we don't set fire to

 5     those houses they'll return later on."

 6             Find that at page 13.

 7             Now, Your Honours, those references were to cleansings by the

 8     accused's forces in very late May or June or July.  Now I'll turn to

 9     cleansing operations some months later and I'll specifically discuss the

10     accused's involvement in those particular events, and as an interesting

11     chronology that the Court has had an opportunity to observe.

12             So first we see that on the 8th of November, 1992, the accused,

13     Mr. Krajisnik and others met with General Mladic and corps commanders,

14     including Drina Corps Commander Zivanovic.  And if you turn -- you'll see

15     at P1481, a portion of the Mladic diary - that's at e-court page 146

16     through 147 - Mr. Krajisnik explains that not all of the strategic

17     objectives have been achieved.  They have achieved the corridor; that's

18     through Operation Corridor up in -- in part in north-west Bosnia.  But

19     Mr. Krajisnik explains, The most pressing thing is to mop up Orasje, a

20     heavily Croat area up north, and then to solve the problem of the

21     Podrinje area and the Neretva valley as soon as possible.  The Muslims

22     must not stay with us and they should not be given any kind of autonomy.

23     The important objective is the task assigned to Zivanovic the mopping up

24     of the Drina, the "ciscenje" of the Drina.  The most important task is

25     separation from the Muslims.


Page 28636

 1             Now we also learned that in the days following, the accused was

 2     asked to review and approve directive 4 and offered suggestions and

 3     verbally approved it and returned it for signature.  That's D02149.

 4     Directive 4 was indeed issued on November 19th, and as they had discussed

 5     on the 8th, it orders operations to reach the left bank of the Neretva,

 6     page 4, to "liberate Orasje, meaning that they didn't have it yet but

 7     wanted it.  That's page 5.  And with respect to what Mr. Krajisnik had

 8     explained on the 8th as the most important task, the one to be given to

 9     Zivanovic, the "ciscenje" of the Drina, this order:

10             "The rest of its forces in the wider Podrinje region are to

11     exhaust the enemy, inflict the heaviest possible losses on them and force

12     them to leave the Birac, Zepa, and Gorazde areas with the Muslim

13     population."  P976, page 5.

14             Now, and on the following day, Mladic ordered that a seminar

15     regarding the activities and tasks for the Drina Corps be prepared in

16     response to a specific request by the accused and it was to be led

17     personally by the accused.  And you can find that at P3037, P4921.  This

18     conference was held on the 23rd of November.  That's P4922.  And the

19     syllabus and the schedule reveal that the accused opened the seminar

20     and -- or conference and after hearing from various commanders, including

21     Zivanovic, gave the closing speech and gave the tasks for the work of the

22     Drina Corps and the organs of the civilian government.  That's P4248.

23     You will also find in the accused's own diary in handwritten notes the

24     tasks given to Zivanovic.  And it says "Colonel Zivanovic:  Tasks:"  And

25     a number of items, Cerska, Zepa, Srebrenica, and Gorazde.  That's P2716.


Page 28637

 1             And the following day, the 24th of November, Zivanovic issued the

 2     following order:

 3             "Pursuant to directive of the Main Staff," et cetera, et cetera,

 4     "I have decided, 1, launch an attack using the main body of troops and

 5     major equipment to inflict on the enemy the highest possible losses,

 6     exhaust them, break them up or force them to surrender, and force the

 7     Muslim population to abandon the area of Cerska, Zepa, Srebrenica, and

 8     Gorazde."

 9             The "ciscenje" of the Drina, to render it clean, just as the

10     strategic objective number 3 and as Krajisnik had explained, envisaged.

11             Now before leaving that, I want to turn quickly to a few

12     reflections of the nature of the operations that resulted, and the Court

13     has P5261, an intercept dated the 8th of February, 1993, between

14     Zivanovic and Gborevic [phoen].  And Zivanovic says, Hold tightly the

15     positions.  Are the Turks' houses burning?  And Gborevic says, They're

16     burning.  They're burning.  And Zivanovic says, Way to go, as many as

17     possible.

18             Or P3162, that's a Birac Light Infantry -- Infantry Brigade

19     combat report signed by Svetozar Andric who would later become the chief

20     of staff of the Drina Corps, promoted by the accused in the middle of the

21     Srebrenica genocide.  Our forces which are moving in the wider area of

22     Kamenica, Gajici, and Grobici [phoen] worked according to plan without

23     major problems.  The village of Gobulje [phoen] has been burnt and

24     tomorrow the plan is to do Poljevine [phoen].

25             Or P3161, another Andric document:


Page 28638

 1             "In the course of the day special units of the 1st Birac Brigade

 2     took and destroyed the village of Gobili [phoen], thus freeing up the

 3     left bank of the main forces in the attack on Cerska.  At the entry into

 4     the village, our soldiers found weapons and other military equipment as

 5     well as food and cattle which the enemy left behind when fleeing from our

 6     forces."

 7             And the accused and his confidant, Mr. Krajisnik, kept their eye

 8     on the ball with respect to strategic objective number 3 and there

 9     perceived need to clean the Drina.  As Krajisnik said at the 33rd Session

10     of the Bosnian Serb Assembly:

11             "Since Vojo Kupresanin has asked me this question, I believe we

12     have to understanding something.  We have strategic goals.  Just imagine

13     how the people of Herzegovina would be angry because the Neretva is not

14     our river.  Just imagine how angry they would be -- or how they would be

15     angry because we haven't cleaned the Drina, and imagine how others would

16     be angry because we don't have a part of the Sarajevo."

17             The accused would later remind people of exactly the same thing.

18     At the 53rd Session at page 68, he said:  "The Drina should be clean."

19             Now that's merely part of the backdrop against which the

20     assertions made by the accused in their submission of Monday must be

21     understood, but, nevertheless, I'd like to address some of the specific

22     assertions that were made.

23             At -- on Monday, at transcript page 28581, the accused somehow

24     tried to analogise or to assert that the population movement was simply a

25     matter of -- that could be analogised to a hurricane, like a -- Katarina


Page 28639

 1     or some -- like in other countries, if there's a natural disaster, if

 2     there's a hurricane in the US coast, there has to be an evacuation.  And

 3     tried to suggest that was the nature of the population redistribution

 4     that took place in territories claimed by his political and military

 5     forces.

 6             Of course, that gives rise to any number of follow-up questions,

 7     such as why was there active destruction of virtually all of the

 8     religious sites and mosques in those territories.  You heard the

 9     testimony of Mr. Riedlmayer and you saw in Exhibit P4070 which documents

10     the destruction of 281 mosques in 22 municipalities located in the

11     territory seized and held by the accused's forces during the period of

12     the indictment.

13             You heard also among many other pieces of information, specific

14     information from specific municipalities relating to mosques, the

15     testimony of Milan Tupajic and Exhibit P05238 about the destruction of

16     mosques in the Sokolac municipality by the engineers of the 2nd Romanija

17     Brigade.  He also explained why:

18             "There's a belief among the Serbs that if there are no mosques,

19     there are no Muslims and by destroying the mosques, the Muslims will lose

20     a motive to return to their villages."

21             As another example, again, among many, you can turn to P3634

22     which is under seal which reflects information to essentially the same

23     effect that information was put out to the effect that if you destroy a

24     Muslim religious site and set fire to his house he'll never go back.

25     That information was put out by Crisis Staff members.  And the


Page 28640

 1     destruction of mosques was to eradicate or delete all traces of Muslim

 2     presence in the area and, of course, to intimidate the remaining Muslims

 3     into leaving the area.  The ethnic cleansing was the reason for the

 4     destruction of the mosques.

 5             And after natural disasters it doesn't typically happen that the

 6     names of the towns and municipalities are changed to reflect their

 7     Serbian domination.  For example, you heard -- you can see at P3478 that

 8     after Kozarac, a town that was 700 years old, was burned down, the

 9     soldiers put up a sign calling it Radmilova, that is, in the Cyrillic

10     alphabet, named after the Bosnian Serb military figure who had cleansed

11     and burned what -- what was up to then, a Muslim town.

12             Or the testimony of KDZ379 at transcript page 18851 through 52,

13     that after the war, towns were given names with Serbian prefixes and they

14     assigned their own names to places based on their decisions.

15             Or P3476 where you can see Miroslav Stanic from Foca -- Foca

16     local leader, describing his role as both a member of the Main Board of

17     the SDS and the president of the Municipal Board of what had up to then

18     had been Foca and what had become Srbinje.  And, indeed, you can hear the

19     accused's view on that as well, if you turn to the 37th Session of the

20     Bosnian Serb Assembly at page 110 where he said:

21             "Two years ago, we were a group in Bosnia and Herzegovina that

22     had some rights, and now we are the state.  And what we hold is

23     100 per cent ours.  Look at Srbinje.  Their plans for Srbinje were to

24     build a big Islamic centre there.  Foca is extremely important to them

25     but it will never be theirs again."


Page 28641

 1             And after a natural disaster, you're unlikely to see an effort by

 2     the authorities in power to affirmatively cement the population

 3     redistribution that resulted and prevent the return of the people who

 4     previously lived there.  There are many examples of that, but an

 5     extremely interesting one that this Court had an opportunity to see at

 6     two separate Assembly Sessions involving the accused specifically and his

 7     plans to effect that occur in two Assembly Sessions.  First, the

 8     37th Assembly Session in January of 1994 where there's a colloquy between

 9     the accused and Mr. Maksimovic, a significant Bosnian Serb political

10     official who was the president of the Deputies Club in 1991 and 1992, and

11     Maksimovic says at pages 126 through 127 is that he wants to see a firm

12     attitude that the Muslims and Croats will not be allowed to return:

13             "I do not care if the Muslims will live at all, where they will

14     live, whether they will have a country or not.  The only thing I'm

15     interested in is my people and the territory where my people live.

16     Therefore any thought about having 500 or more Muslims within our future

17     country is out of the question."

18             And the accused responds that with respect to the return of

19     refugees that he owes an answer to Vojo's question.  He notes that

20     according to international law, they can't specifically ban the return of

21     return the refugees, and they can -- in principle, they can return.  But

22     he would add just one sentence.  This also has to be a two-way process.

23     And he knows that later on one of the internationals asked him, Why did

24     you insist on a two-way process?  And he says, When then the Serbs from

25     Zvornik returned to Zenica, then the Muslims from Prijedor will return to


Page 28642

 1     Prijedor.  Therefore, it must be a two-way process.

 2             And at the 53rd, he explained it even more carefully and

 3     explicitly.  Again, he was -- that's at -- that's at the

 4     53rd Assembly Session, and that's Exhibit P988.  That's at page 29.

 5     Again, he is talking about the insistence by the international community

 6     on a right of return.  And he notes that we have added must be an overall

 7     process.  And the internationals don't quite know what that's about.  So

 8     he's -- explains, What does that mean an overall process?  That means

 9     that the Muslims from Kozluk can return to Kozluk if the Serbs from

10     Kozluk return to Zenica.  If they don't want to return then we -- if they

11     cannot return then we need a new war to exchange that, and that's why we

12     should always insist on this; so an overall process, either overall or

13     not at all.  We can act the Serbian Cyrillic way and tell it to their

14     face or we can be a bit cunning.  We do have to be a bit cunning.  So

15     that was how he intended to cement the cleansing.

16             And you might ask yourselves, Well, how exactly he spoke about

17     the Muslims from Kozluk?  How did they leave in the first place?  You

18     have that information - if you turn to P1478 - that's the Mladic

19     notebook.  It reflects a meeting that General Mladic had with the accused

20     and representatives from Zvornik and other municipalities on

21     30th of June, 1992.  And take a look at that document because two

22     representatives from Zvornik talk about that, one is a political

23     representative, Mr. Grujic, one was the TO commander, Mr. Pavlovic.

24     Grujic says, We have successfully implemented the president's decision to

25     settle Divic and Kozluk with our children.  And Pavlovic explains --


Page 28643

 1     that's at pages 246 through 247.  Pavlovic explains at page 250 through

 2     251, indeed, boasts to his Commander-in-Chief, We were most active in

 3     evicting the Muslims.  We have brought peace to Sepak, Divic and Kozluk.

 4     Some of them wanted to move out, while we demanded it.  We had to evict

 5     some of the people also for the sake of our heros who fled from

 6     Kovacevici.

 7             And you also heard evidence from a victim from one of those who

 8     was forced to leave his home in order to implement the president's

 9     decision, and that was Mr. -- you can find that at P00104,

10     Mr. Banjanovic, pages 23 through 24, and he explains the cleansing of

11     Kozluk and how Muslims were forced to leave in the presence of thousands

12     of soldiers who made it crystal-clear when you read that statement that

13     the Muslims were obliged to leave the area.

14             I had referred to the accused's explanation of how he was going

15     to ensure that Muslim did not return.  He also explained on the same

16     occasion, as he had on previous occasions, why, and at page 33, you can

17     see that he says that they have to draw a hard-line because they're

18     worried about Muslims leaving the Muslim part and coming back to the Serb

19     part:  If they can live on Grbavica, if they can leave in Doboj, they can

20     live anywhere and we have to prevent it.

21             Now, the accused also said on Monday, or asserted on Monday, that

22     the war and violence were not fundamental preconditions for implementing

23     the objectives.  On the contrary the objectives were recognised by the

24     international community and they could be attained without going to war.

25     He said that the Serbs were not prepared for war and they had no --


Page 28644

 1     neglected to make any preparations, et cetera.  Well, with regard to

 2     preparations and the assertions that no preparations were made, you can

 3     turn to an enormous wealth of material about the efforts undertaken by

 4     the accused to make sure that the Bosnian Serbs were amply prepared, and,

 5     indeed, at the -- I think the 11th Assembly Session, he asserts that, We

 6     have taken all measures necessary to ensure.  We haven't neglected to

 7     take those measures, contradicting what he tries to tell the Court here.

 8     But look also at the 50th Assembly Session and see these comments from

 9     Jovan Tintor from Vogosca, and that's at page 304.  And he speaks about

10     the period of time before the war and explains his role:

11             "I was ordered to create military formations.  Perhaps you do not

12     know it, General," and he's speaking to Mladic here, "but I want you to

13     know this.  I went from municipality to municipality and created military

14     formations on order from my president.  And this is true.  Here are

15     people who know this to be the truth and have papers to prove it.  We

16     created brigade commanders down to platoon commanders.  All this was done

17     by SDS for the good of the Serbian people and all this we did as best we

18     could."

19             Now, just to confirm that Mr. Tintor, while he may be boasting,

20     he is telling the truth.  That's confirmed by the accused himself - at

21     pages 2323 to 2324 - who says, I will say that when it all began the

22     Serbian people was ready, more ready than ever.  There was a brigade or a

23     detachment in each municipality.  There was a command hidden from the

24     JNA, although not so much here.

25             Now, the accused stated on Monday, or suggested on Monday, as he


Page 28645

 1     had on other occasions, that the strategic objectives were -- had nothing

 2     to do with the military efforts and were simply a reflection of the

 3     negotiating positions taken by the Bosnian Serbs during 1992.  It is

 4     impossible to enumerate all the documentation, all the statements, of

 5     which indicate the contrary, but let me touch upon a few.

 6             First of all is the obvious fact that the accused consulted with

 7     Mladic before enunciating the strategic objectives.  If you turn to the

 8     Mladic diary you will see a meeting on May 6, the accused, Mr. Krajisnik,

 9     General Mladic working out the strategic objectives.  You'll find that at

10     P1477, pages 256 through 258.

11             At the 16th Session of the Assembly on May 12, Mladic would

12     explain that he worked on the strategic objectives.

13             Listen -- well, and then Mladic at the 34th Session of the

14     Bosnian Serb Assembly in 1993 was equally explicit:

15             "First, the people and the army with the help from the rest of

16     us, according to our possibilities, have carried out most of the tasks

17     and strategic goals sent to them.  We have created Republika Srpska."

18             And at the 50th Session he would confirm the same thing.  You

19     find that at page 22:

20             "The tasks of the army in this war stem from the known six

21     strategic objectives, adopted by our Assembly which have not been carried

22     out to the full due to lack of material and other support."

23             General Milovanovic who you heard from, if you look at D2149 - it

24     was actually a Defence exhibit - explained that at some point during the

25     war the accused relieved the VRS of the responsibility to solve the


Page 28646

 1     Neretva - that's strategic objective number 4 - in the military way, and

 2     Milovanovic's only regret that he didn't ask whether or not it was the

 3     case that the -- because they were having similar problems it was the

 4     case that the VRS was no longer tasked with carrying out the

 5     implementation of strategic objective number 6, that is access to the

 6     sea.

 7             You can also look directly at the words of the combat readiness

 8     report signed off on and with a long editorial portion by the accused

 9     himself which states -- and that's D325.  You can find that at page 159:

10             "The strategic objectives of the war were handed down to the VRS

11     Main Staff, not specific tasks and operations, and the objectives served

12     as general guide-lines of the actual operations.  However, the president

13     of the republic did issue some specific tasks orally, if they were of

14     vital importance."

15             And that goes on at page 160:

16             In the last month and a half, the operations have concentrated on

17     the liberation of Vodrije [phoen], and thereby, the strategic objective

18     of our war be realised, one that could be defined as establishing contact

19     with Serbia on the river Drina or the Drina ceasing to be a frontier."

20             And that's a reflection of some of the operations stemming from

21     directive 4 that I referred to at the beginning of our discussion.

22             Among the other preparations made by the accused beyond those

23     discussed by Tintor himself at the 50th, of course, were the -- the

24     establishment of the executive bodies necessary to implement the

25     strategic objectives in each municipality, a good deal of which was set


Page 28647

 1     up through the intervention of the Variant A and B document, the

 2     instructions for the organs, the activities of organs in an emergency

 3     condition.  So that's -- sets up Crisis Staffs and tells them

 4     sequentially what they are to do and to get ready for what -- what might

 5     happen.

 6             The accused has tried hard not only on Monday to suggest there

 7     were no preparations.  But also during the course of the case, I couldn't

 8     possibly hope to go over all the information related to Variant A and B

 9     document, but I do want to touch upon a little just to underscore that

10     the accused's effort to mischaracterise his role in that document.  So

11     you -- and here's some -- only some of the evidence.  You heard from

12     witnesses that it was the accused who distributed the document.  You can

13     turn to P2568 at transcript 16647, 16650, that's Mr. Neskovic, about the

14     accused's distribution of the document.  You heard from Prstojevic about

15     how the document was distributed at that -- at that time.  You saw

16     considerable evidence of how it was received and immediately implemented

17     by various municipalities.  Can you turn to P2575, P2595 P5517, P2592,

18     P2590, P2589, and I'm referring to such municipalities as Prijedor,

19     Kljuc, Novo Sarajevo, Bratunac and Zvornik.  And you also saw evidence of

20     the accused's immediate role in ensuring the implementation of that

21     document.  That's seen through, among other things, a series of

22     intercepts where the accused, first he talks to someone asking for

23     Cizmovic, that's D1434, on the 20th.  Then he speaks

24     with Krajisnik about the need to have Cizmovic run from municipality to

25     municipality.  P2550 --


Page 28648

 1             JUDGE KWON:  Mr. Tieger, take a look at the monitor.

 2             MR. TIEGER:  I'm so sorry.

 3             JUDGE KWON:  You are kindly asked to slow down a bit.

 4             MR. TIEGER:  I actually speak to the -- my apologies to the

 5     reporter and I spoke to the interprets before in the hope that I would

 6     avoid that.

 7             I'll just mention a few more slowly.  There are intercepts

 8     reflecting the accused's discussions with Cizmovic including explicit

 9     references to the need to travel from municipality to municipality to

10     ensure that the instructions are implemented.

11             And you can look at P2551, 2552, 2553, 2552, Cizmovic says -- he

12     talks about -- he is checking out how far had they come, to what extent

13     are they prepared to implement the first level of the instructions.  At

14     the 6th Assembly Session on January 26 when they're discussing the need

15     for urgent action, Cizmovic stands up in front of everybody, including

16     the accused, and says -- calls for the urgent operationalisation and

17     declaration of activities and that the tasks set out in the 19

18     December 1991 instruction should be carried out.  It was explicitly

19     activated.  The second level of the instructions were explicitly

20     activated by the accused on 14th of February.  He refers to them four

21     separate times, and says at page 24 of P00012:

22             "That is why we called you today to intensify, to introduce the

23     second level and to intensify the functioning of the government at any

24     cost and on every single millimetre of our territory."

25             And that is reflected also in P2597 and in P5516.  Those were


Page 28649

 1     municipality reflections of that activation by the accused.

 2             And, finally, the accused himself at the 46th and 50th Sessions

 3     of the Assembly made specific references to the importance of Variant A

 4     and B in preparing the Bosnian Serbs for what would happen, and for what

 5     they needed to do.  That's at 347 through 348 of the 46th Session.  Do

 6     you remember the instruction A and instruction B, he asks them.  We had

 7     Crisis Staffs, and it was clear that they were the authority.  The people

 8     were not left without the authority because there was a Crisis Staff.

 9             And at the 50th Session, P970, at page 316, he says, You will

10     remember the A and B Variants so that at the moment the war began in the

11     municipalities where we were in the majority, where we had municipal

12     power, held it firmly, controlled everything, in the municipalities where

13     we were in the minority we set up secret government, Municipal Boards,

14     municipal assemblies, presidents of Executive Boards.  We had set up --

15     you will remember the A and B Variants.  And the B Variant where we were

16     in the minority, 20, 15 per cent, we had set up a government and a

17     brigade, a unit no matter what size but there was a detachment with a

18     commander.  And he goes on at that same Session to describe how they

19     created and liberated the space.

20             Now, the accused also asserted that separation was not a declared

21     aim and he was sort of focussing on the period of February and March.  I

22     think, in that instances, asking the Court to look at certain isolated

23     statements made during that period before the conflict broke out when the

24     two-track process of engaging in negotiations in the hope of obtaining

25     resolution satisfactory to the Bosnian Serbs while simultaneously


Page 28650

 1     preparing for war if they didn't get what they wanted was taking place.

 2     And he tried to suggest that those statements should somehow trump the

 3     vast amount of evidence indicating the contrary.

 4             Just two documents -- a couple of documents clearly indicate what

 5     was happening there.  First of all, at the 11th Assembly Session, the

 6     accused made explicit that -- why they had to say one thing to

 7     internationals and keep some other things secret, and he said:

 8             "We do not have to say everything yet," tis is at page 44, "the

 9     fact is that all the telescopes are now pointed at Yugoslavia, at

10     Bosnia-Herzegovina.  The ultimate strategic goal must still remain a

11     secret."

12             But when pressed, he made clear that separation, contrary to what

13     he asserted on Monday, was indeed the objective.  And for that, you have

14     only have to look at P938.  That is square in the middle of that

15     February/March period.  It is February 28th, 1992.  And he said the

16     following, and the context was he is insisting that a unified policy be

17     followed so that there's no risk that in the Bosnian Serb territories

18     some temporary solution will be reached that results in too many Muslims.

19             And he says:

20             "Imagine the stupidity of it.  The conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina

21     is basically a conflict among peoples.  Just as it was in the case

22     between Indian and Pakistan, and that's nothing new, it resulted in a

23     huge resettlement of the people.  Muslims cannot live with others, we

24     must be clear on that.  They couldn't life with the Hindu who are as

25     peaceful as sheep."


Page 28651

 1             He goes on to describe the -- to continue to assert Muslims can't

 2     live with others.  There can be no discuss here, he says.  And he says --

 3     and then he pushes against the possibility of a separate Bosnian Krajina,

 4     saying in two years' time, you would have problems against to separate

 5     each and every village there, "because they will overwhelm you with their

 6     birth-rate and their tricks, we cannot allow that to happen."

 7             And even after the ethnic cleansing had been largely achieved,

 8     you'll find at the 17th -- by the time that 17th Session of the Bosnian

 9     Serbs Assembly in July of 1992, the accused is boasting about having

10     conquered approximately 70 per cent of the territory of

11     Bosnia-Herzegovina and, indeed, acknowledging that there was territory

12     they could consider give willing back in negotiations, and you saw the

13     Krajisnik map which indicated the vast extent of the territories that

14     were successfully conquered by the Bosnian Serb forces.

15             And, by the way, when I use the term "conquering," it is not a

16     term invented by the Prosecution.  You will find it in various documents.

17     For example, at the 16th Assembly Session, one of the delegates from

18     Brcko in that case asks the accused to assist in getting more people to

19     Brcko to assist in the conquering because in Brcko the Serbs were a

20     minority.  But even after all that had been accomplished, there was a

21     continued emphasise on the need for national homogenisation.

22             If you look at P794, you'll see a meeting in January of 1993 at

23     the council for co-ordinating positions on state policy.  The accused was

24     there.  Mr. Krajisnik was there.  Mr.  Koljevic was there and

25     high-ranking officials, including Mr. Milosevic from Serbia.  And there


Page 28652

 1     was this colloquy between the accused and the foreign minister of Serbia,

 2     Mr. Jovanovic.  Mr. Jovanovic talks about the goals and says, The

 3     territorial link with -- and this is at page -- I'll have to get the

 4     pages that -- I think it is page 34, but I will have to check the precise

 5     page, Mr.  President.

 6             Mr. Jovanovic says, The territorial link with Serbia Montenegro

 7     is hugely important, so it's not transitory, but:

 8             "What is more important is to make the territory that we get

 9     nationally homogenous as soon as possible.  And that is the strategic

10     goal to which they should aspire."

11             He urges the Bosnian Serbs to refrain from ethnic cleansing to do

12     that, that is, traditional ethnic cleansing, but explains how there are

13     various ways of making it clear to people that they should leave the

14     provinces that are controlled by the Serbs and go -- go elsewhere and

15     Dr. Karadzic responds quite affirmatively and enthusiastically, I think

16     that this which Jovanovic is talking about, that's already happened to a

17     huge extent.  He assures him, There was 50-50 of us in Zvornik and now

18     the number of inhabitants of Zvornik is the same, approximately 50.000,

19     and they're all Serbs.  And that's all of a piece with his discussion

20     with Mr. Maksimovic later about how he will ensure that it the Muslims

21     cannot return.

22             Similarly, in focussing on snippets from particular moments and

23     documents taken from a particular context in order to emphasise something

24     that is belied by the overall weight of the evidence, the accused

25     focussed on -- he said on 22nd of April, I issued a platform suggesting


Page 28653

 1     that territories taken by force be not recognised and that peace be

 2     secured as soon as possible, and that the Prosecution hadn't shown that

 3     he supported the expansion of territory.

 4             Well, apart from the evidence that I've already recited, let me

 5     focus on that specific period, that is, the April time, where the accused

 6     wants you to focus for a moment and see what's happening.  And for that,

 7     you can turn quickly to the two sources.  The first is P1477, the Mladic

 8     notebook entry of the 6th of May, 1992.  That's a meeting that I referred

 9     to earlier.  At that meeting the accused explained to General Mladic, We

10     are -- with respect to Sarajevo, We are controlling the Serbian

11     settlements in the city and expanding them.  It would be a disaster, he

12     noted, if we did not separate with them.  Controlling the Serbian

13     settlements and expanding them.  And that was confirmed, as you may

14     recall, at the 17th Assembly Session, that's P28, which was held in July

15     when one of the local Serbian Crisis Staff leaders -- Mr. Prstojevic had

16     this to say about what was happening in Sarajevo, that at the very

17     beginning, they didn't know whether Mr. Karadzic was alive:

18             "During the first couple of days when we learned that he was

19     alive and when he visited us in Ilidza and encouraged us, the Serbs from

20     Sarajevo retained control over the territory and even extended their

21     territory in some areas driving the Muslims out of the territories where

22     they had actually been majority."

23             So, contrary to the accused's suggestion, he was immediately and

24     directly as he acknowledged to Mladic himself encouraging the expansion

25     of Serbian -- Bosnian Serb territory.


Page 28654

 1             Mr. President, there's a great deal of additional material I want

 2     to cover.  I hope to get back to it, but I want to stick to the timetable

 3     and be fair to the rest of the components of the case, so it may be a bit

 4     truncated.  I'm about to move to the Sarajevo section.

 5             Two of the issues I had wished to cover, among others with

 6     respect to the accused's specific comments on Monday, was the suggestion

 7     that he didn't have contact with the municipalities or the opportunity

 8     for contact based on his references to the testimony of Mr. Djeric.  In

 9     that respect, although I may be able to return it, I would simply say

10     that if you look at the testimony and the -- of Mr. Djeric, he was

11     talking about the fact that it was the government, way up there at the

12     top of Mount Jahorina, distant from where the accused was that was out of

13     contact, and he specifically noted in his statement the efforts he was

14     making to get the people who did have communications and did have

15     information to provide him with such, including the accused's right-hand

16     men, Momcilo Mandic and Mr. Stanisic.  And you heard ample evidence about

17     the Bosnian Serb communication system including the VRS communication

18     system, the republic communication system, which were merged and linked,

19     and which was never -- the only time it was down was in August of 1995

20     briefly because of the NATO bombing and it functioned in various ways and

21     the RS MUP system.

22             For that you could look at P2794 for an extensive discussion

23     about how those systems worked, and the other -- one of the other issues

24     I would have hoped to cover and may be able to return to is the accused's

25     effort to distance himself from the detention facilities, and suggesting


Page 28655

 1     that he both couldn't have known what was going on, didn't have

 2     information.

 3             Let me simply note that if you turn to, again, the testimony of

 4     Mr. Djeric, you will see considerable reference to that issue that by

 5     May -- by -- at the earliest stages beginning with a decision by the

 6     national security council of which the accused was head.  A system of

 7     detention of civilians was set up.  On the 8th of May, the republic

 8     exchange commission was established.  That was a parametal structure that

 9     reached down through the regions to the municipalities.  You can see that

10     the -- you may remember the video of the Bratunac prisoners you saw -

11     that was P3206; that was May 14th - who came through Pale -- were in Pale

12     for a couple of days.  They were, quote/unquote, "exchanged through the

13     exchange commission," and if you look at the sessions of the Bosnian Serb

14     government on June 10th and June 15th, you will see the extreme concerns

15     about the risk of international condemnation about what was happening in

16     such facilities that threatened the entire state if not handled

17     correctly.  And Djeric told you he -- they had information about that.

18     Among other things, it prompted him to write a letter to James Baker, the

19     US Secretary of State, on May 24th denying that, such camps existed.  And

20     that all of those were -- efforts were based on the information they were

21     receiving about the mistreatment and -- and -- and inhumane conditions

22     in -- in camps.  And that would include intercepts between Mr. Krajisnik

23     and Mr. Mandic and Mr. Krajisnik -- Mr. Karadzic and Mr. Mandic about --

24     about prisons in camps.  You can look at -- I'll get you those cites

25     after the break, in fact.  I think it's P1102 and P1103.


Page 28656

 1             There was a July 17th report by Mr. Stanisic, the president of

 2     the MUP, directly to Mr. Karadzic, talking about the fact that the army

 3     and the Crisis Staffs were rounding up Muslim civilians and placing them

 4     in inhumane conditions.  Stanisic's concern, as you will see from that

 5     document, is not the crime that is taking place systematically but

 6     instead its impact on his own resources and the resources of the MUP.

 7     And the fact that nothing happened at all until the international

 8     community, as you heard from Mr. Vulliamy, exposed in a graphic way what

 9     was happening in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the condition of the camps,

10     and even then people continued to languish in Manjaca and Batkovic and

11     other facilities.

12             Mr. President, I hope that it will be such that I'll be able to

13     return to some of the specific assertions with respect to municipalities

14     and Counts 3 through 8.  But in the meantime, I want to turn to the

15     accused's assertions about Counts 9 through 10, and about Sarajevo.

16             Again, I intend to address some of the accused's specific

17     assertions but all of that must be seen against the back drop of the

18     overwhelming evidence about what took place in Sarajevo and who was

19     responsible.  We saw witness after witness with extensive military

20     experience and/or experience in other conflicts who had the opportunity

21     to observe and experience the shelling and sniping in Sarajevo over many

22     months and who concluded that the campaign was intended to inflict terror

23     on the population.

24             KDZ185 concluded that the "prime objective" of the shelling and

25     sniping was to terrorise the civilian population.  And when asked why he


Page 28657

 1     chose the term "terror," he explained it.  Explaining at transcript pages

 2     4177 through 78 what the experience of being subjected to this as

 3     defenceless civilian without weapons must be like and how it must be

 4     contrasted to the experience of someone who at least would be able to do

 5     something about it.

 6             A contemporaneous report for July 8th, 1995, and it's a rather

 7     typical report states:

 8             "Sniping and mortaring are still at a reasonably high level.

 9     This seems to have no particular military value but contributes to a

10     general atmosphere in the city.  Almost no civilians now use the city's

11     main east/west thoroughfare, that's sniper alley, so much so that snipers

12     who used to work that area now seem to have relocated.  Sporadic, almost

13     random bombardment of the city continues."

14             And the author of the report testify -- by the way, that's P822

15     at page 2.  The author of the report testified here, that is Mr. Harland,

16     and he said he wasn't trying to be emotional in using that term.  He was

17     merely trying to reflect what was happening and the feeling of the

18     population as a result of the various levers of pressure applied, the

19     shelling and sniping and the lack of humanitarian assistance, and so on.

20             And terror was the word that witness after witness with military

21     and combat experience used to describe the shelling and sniping in

22     Sarajevo.  van Baal, P1818; Adbul Razik, see transcript 5514 through 15;

23     van Lynden, P926, paragraph 25; Bowen, transcript 10212 through 10213;

24     Tucker, P4203, paragraph 90; Fraser, P1762, paragraph 73; Brennskag,

25     P1851, paragraph 60; Banbury, P2451, paragraph 199; KDZ304, P2407,


Page 28658

 1     page 10; KDZ182, transcript 13038; and so on.

 2             And the evidence shows that the accused was clearly in overall

 3     command of this campaign, ratchetting the terror up and down as it suited

 4     his political aims.  Banbury, for example, concluded that Mladic and

 5     Karadzic absolutely, that was his word, had the ability to modulate the

 6     level of terror in Sarajevo:

 7             "They could improve conditions by, for example, opening the

 8     airport, allowing commercial supplies, supplying gas, et cetera, stopping

 9     the sniping, stopping the shelling, and, equally, make conditions worse

10     by restricting these things.  Both men demonstrated such abilities by

11     using them as leverage in negotiations."

12             That's P2451, paragraph 200.

13             And General Rose reached a similar conclusion.  The parties at

14     the senior military level on both sides have the ability to control the

15     shelling and sniping as was evident through negotiating terms of the

16     cessation of sniping, for example.  He added that:

17             "It was clear that Dr. Karadzic and General Mladic were at the

18     peak of the pyramid of control of the Bosnian Serb forces."

19             That's P1638.  Paragraphs 205 through 207.  These observations by

20     the internationals are matched by the direct evidence of the accused's

21     control of military actions in Sarajevo.

22             So, for example, we see and we -- we had an opportunity to see

23     the intercepted conversation of the 13th of August, 1993, where the

24     accused directed General Gvero to order Galic to:

25             "Pull the troops back far enough to avoid us having any problems


Page 28659

 1     in relation to the international community."

 2             And, further, that the information that has been done must reach

 3     Owen by 2.00 or 2.30, and moments later, Gvero assures Karadzic:

 4             "Both written and oral orders were issued to Galic and the chief

 5     has gone up there to personally check whether it has been done."

 6             That's P4783.

 7             General Galic implemented the order the same day.  P5042.

 8             Indeed, the very nature of the campaign belies the accused's

 9     assertion that he was not in overall control of the shelling and sniping

10     and the terror.  Mr. Banbury observed:

11             "In light of the longevity of the campaign of sniping and

12     shelling and the ongoing notice provided there is no other conclusion to

13     draw but that the campaign was the policy of Bosnian Serb leaders.  The

14     execution of the siege required vast resources and was on such a scale,

15     such a large-scale, that it can only have be ordered from the highest

16     levels."

17             That's P2451, paragraph 203.

18             And that observation also demonstrates that by continuing the

19     campaign for well over three years, fully aware of impact, the accused

20     intended to spread terror among the civilian population of Sarajevo.

21             Now, on Monday, the accused asserted that the Prosecution "did

22     not manage to prove that the Serbian side fired indiscriminately," did

23     not manage to prove that the Serbs carried out militarily unjustified

24     actions in the Sarajevo sector, and didn't manage to prove that Sarajevo

25     was a civilian zone or that civilians were the target of any given


Page 28660

 1     military action by the Serb side.

 2             To the contrary, Your Honours, the evidence reveals that the

 3     shelling in Sarajevo was directed - was indeed largely directed - at the

 4     civilian population rather than military objects, and this is clear from

 5     a wealth of evidence.

 6             General Fraser explained that in the middle of the city there

 7     were no military positions.  And when shelling happened inside the city:

 8             "We would go and investigate or the UNMOs would go in and

 9     investigate.  And for the most part there were only civilian communities

10     or people in those areas, no military target that we could identify."

11             That is P1762, page 51.

12             UNMO Thomas observed shelling into residential areas and:

13             "Could see no military value in anything that was being shelled.

14     There was no military target that they could be attacking with shells.

15     It just seemed to be random into buildings."

16             And Thomas added that the lack of military value to this shelling

17     was underscored by the lack of any apparent target analysis by the

18     Bosnian Serbs of what they had hid.

19             Konings also -- and that is transcript pages 6798 through 6799.

20             Konings also "observed that they just fired into civilian areas.

21     They didn't care where the exact impact was.  They were clearing

22     harassing people over and over again."

23             P1952, para 22.

24             And then when asked whether he was aware of shelling of purely

25     residential areas, KDZ182:


Page 28661

 1             "Of course.  It is obvious there were areas which to my knowledge

 2     and to the knowledge of UNPROFOR as a whole, there was no military

 3     target.  Those shellings aimed at the population."

 4             That's P13038 through 13039.

 5             Now, a number of witnesses with military backgrounds make a point

 6     of distinguishing between real military shelling which the Bosnian Serbs

 7     carried out in certain specific circumstances from the bulk of the

 8     shelling, which was "random" with no military purpose.

 9             For example, van Lynden distinguished "concentrated fire which

10     accurately pounded the Marshal Tito Barracks" which was the type of

11     carefully directed shelling one would expect to see in an army's attempt

12     to destroy a particular target.

13             He went on to say:

14             "On the other hand, there was wild, scattered shelling going on

15     all over the city.  At the time it seemed to me that the second type of

16     fire which did not appear to be concentrated on any particular target

17     could only have been an expression of anger over losing the barracks or

18     was meant to punish and frighten the population."

19             KDZ185 also saw two types of shelling.  The first, the more

20     traditional type to support a military action; and the second, to

21     increase psychological pressure on the population and also on the Bosnian

22     government.  So:

23             "Then they were just firing at random on the city in a totally

24     random fashion."

25             Mr. Tucker's observations were similar.  He said:


Page 28662

 1             "There were two types of incoming fire:  There was concentrated

 2     fire, in other words multiple shells landing in a short space of time in

 3     a particular area; and the second type of fire was single shells landing

 4     arbitrarily around the city to no military purpose.  These were shells

 5     which were just landing somewhere within Sarajevo, in other words, the

 6     built-up areas, civilian areas.  They were not fired in support of

 7     attacks or to defend.  They were simply fired into the city."

 8             And he explained that this random shelling was a "daily"

 9     occurrence.  That's P4203, paragraph 23.

10             Mr. Mole, Richard Mole, also testified that these "random"

11     scattered rounds served no military purpose.  And he would call it

12     indiscriminate fire.  He said this is a type of fire he observed in --

13      and that's at T5818 through 5819.  He explained that this is the type of

14     fire he observed in Sarajevo:

15             "When I refer to shelling of the city, I refer to odd rounds

16     landing all over the place.  This is in contrast to concentrated fire.

17     If there is a target and there is a fire mission to attack that target

18     there will be a concentration of fire around that area."

19             And he and his observers routinely reported random shelling of

20     the city.  That's P1435, on a variety of reports, 1433, 1434, 1429.

21             As Brennskag explained to Your Honours:

22             "In my experience, single rounds do not form part of a normal

23     military offensive.  They provide little or no military advantage.  This

24     indicates to me that the aim of such fire was not to hit military targets

25     but instead to terrorise the civilian population."


Page 28663

 1             And he added that in June of 1995 the launching of such single

 2     rounds occurred several times a day resulting in purely civilian

 3     casualties.  P1851, para 31.

 4             Konings provided similar explanation, noting many rounds are

 5     needed to destroy buildings.  And when he and his team witnessed --

 6     however were falling rounds in a random pattern not in a way that you

 7     combat military targets with:

 8             "The fact is what I saw is that they were random firing with

 9     single rounds or a few rounds on areas where there were no military

10     targets whatsoever."

11             That's T9345 through 9346.

12             And General Wilson is another international who made similar

13     observations.  He said:

14             "Typically the Serb fire would be spread over.  It might be over

15     a kilometre."  He said, "mixture that the mixture of calibres, heavy and

16     light, did no appear to be related to any particular tire -- target, no

17     concentration of fire, you know, they didn't appear to have a specific

18     target in mind.  It was just the general area that was being fired upon."

19             T4131.

20             Now, another related phenomenon that the international military

21     personnel and others saw was the massively disproportionate responses to

22     Bosnian offensives and the punitive shelling of civilians in response to

23     those offensives.  General Wilson described them as:

24             "Undoubtedly disproportion because of the volume and weight of

25     fire and its wide distribution."


Page 28664

 1             And he would describe thousands of rounds being directed on an

 2     urban area in response to limited outgoing fire.

 3             That's P1029, paragraph 52.

 4             Tucker observed the same thing in response to Bosnia -- to

 5     Bosnian government attempts to break out of the siege and that the

 6     Bosnian Serb army would respond with heavy weapons to stabilise and then

 7     push back the Bosniaks.  And then he said they would then carry out what

 8     we interpreted as punitive shelling of the city -- of the city out of

 9     which the infantry attack had been mounted and that sequence of events

10     was observed time and time again.

11             So what UNPROFOR observed and sensed was that this was an effort

12     to "punish the citizens in the area from which the attack had come and to

13     demonstrate how useless it was to resist."

14             That's pipe 2403, para 91.

15             Indeed, Richard Mole explained that on at least five to ten

16     occasions, General Galic himself explicitly threatened to shell Sarajevo

17     as retaliatory measure if events elsewhere did not go in the Serb's

18     favour.  And he described this behaviour as part of an "accepted norm."

19     That if the Serb side failed to achieve their objectives in Bosnia "that

20     artillery fire would be brought to bear on the city in response."

21             Harland described a kind of tit for tat shelling that it -- with

22     a heavy ratio of disproportionality, so the ration of 5:1, 10:1 or even

23     more.  And that's described in a report at -- by Harland and others which

24     is captured in P896, a report of 2 July 1995 beginning:

25             "The Serbs have responded by resuming a fairly indiscriminate


Page 28665

 1     bombardment of the down-town area and by increased sniper activity."

 2             And then he relates the killing of people in apartment building

 3     and the destruction of apartments on three floors and the condemnation by

 4     UNPROFOR of what it called highly inaccurate indiscriminate, highly

 5     destructive weapons of terror.

 6             General Wilson -- let me -- it brings to mind something specific

 7     that the accused said is that the Prosecution hadn't -- hasn't -- has

 8     failed to prove that the Serbs would fire first without any provocation

 9     or without any context to defence.  That is an illuminating comment

10     because it appears to reflect the accused's view that any response is

11     appropriate once there has been action by the other side and it entirely

12     misses the point.  The question is the nature of the response.  And as

13     you heard from the internationals, including, General Wilson, there was a

14     vastly disproportionate response.  As he said, so ti's important to

15     understand that while provocative conduct had been perhaps perpetrated by

16     one side, the response was entirely disproportionate to the threat

17     engendered by this activity.  And he described as typical a situation

18     where two or three rounds would be fired by mortar and approximately 200

19     rounds were fired in response distributed over a wide area full of

20     apartment buildings, many of which were hit and set alight.  And he

21     stated the obvious that it was:

22             "Entirely disproportionate to respond to two rounds in this

23     manner that can cause so much damage and so much collateral damage."

24             And General Rose said the same thing, the usual response from

25     the -- by the way, for Wilson that cite is -- you can look T3949 through


Page 28666

 1     3951.

 2             And 4131 through 4133, Rose said the same that was their method

 3     of responding because they didn't have the same level of infantry.  And

 4     he referred to these attacks as disproportionate.  And they included

 5     direct, punitive attacks on civilians, as the evidence reveals, intended

 6     to punish the population of Sarajevo as a whole.  The collective

 7     punishment of the people of Sarajevo in addition to their -- to the

 8     leveraging of that population as a means to extract concessions or gain.

 9             Mr. President, I note the time.  I want to continue with Counts 9

10     and 10 when we resume.

11             JUDGE KWON:  Thank you.  We will have a break for half an hour

12     and resume at 11.00.

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

14                           --- On resuming at 11.04 a.m.

15             JUDGE KWON:  Yes, Mr. Tieger.  Please continue.

16             MR. TIEGER:  Mr. President, before we recessed, I was addressing

17     the accused's submissions concerning indiscriminate fire, militarily

18     unjustified actions, Sarajevo as a civilian zone, and civilians as

19     targets of Bosnian Serb military action.  I had just addressed a point

20     dealing with, in part, collective punishment of the civilians, and I

21     wanted to turn next to direct the Court's attention to one of the -- some

22     of the pieces of evidence concerning an aspect of the terror campaign

23     that addresses both the terror inflicted on the civilian population and

24     the nature of the weaponry used in the absence of military justification.

25     And that's the use of modified air bombs.  Quite simply, these weapons


Page 28667

 1     can't be directed at a selected target with any reasonable degree of

 2     precision.  They are improvised bombs which are:

 3             "Highly inaccurate and particularly destructive."

 4             See, for example, P1953, paragraph 42.

 5             Konings explained to the Court that modified air bombs could

 6     destroy a complete block of offices and had a 50 to 60 metre radius of

 7     destruction.  P1953, para 42.  Enormously destructive weapons.

 8             Military witnesses, such as Overgard, P2058; Fraser, P1762;

 9     Brennskag, P1851, could not conceive of a battle-field situation in which

10     this sort of bomb would be considered an appropriate weapon because one

11     never knew where and when it would explode.  But, as Konings explained:

12     "Accurate targeting didn't matter in Sarajevo."

13             The fact that they - that is, the modified air bombs - hit an

14     office building -- another -- another office -- an office building,

15     excuse me, was:

16             "...pure luck.  It could have hit a church, or an apartment

17     block, or another office building.  It didn't matter where it hit.

18     Sometimes it frightened people, and sometimes it killed people.  Every

19     single round the Serb forces fired into the city, frightened people, and

20     that's what we wanted, to frighten people."

21             P1953, para 43.

22             And in a similar way, the sniping in Sarajevo was also an

23     organised centralised effort to target the civilian population but with a

24     different mechanism.  So as Banbury explained to the Court:

25             "There was no reason for the Serbs to be sniping in Sarajevo.


Page 28668

 1     There were no military targets suitable for sniping.  The argument that

 2     the military, including off-duty soldiers, were intermingled with the

 3     population and that therefore sniping was justified ..."

 4             Said Banbury:

 5             "... is belied by the fact that civilians, including women,

 6     children, and the elderly, were regularly victims of sniping."

 7             That's P2451, para 32.

 8             And he explained that:  "The preponderance of victims of sniping

 9     in Sarajevo were civilians.  And sniping is not an indiscriminate weapon

10     the way, say, mortars are."

11             I'm quoting Banbury here.

12             "... mortars are somewhat indiscriminate.  Sniping is very

13     targeted at a single individual, and the victims of sniping that UNPROFOR

14     was concerned with, and the people who were routinely victims in

15     Sarajevo, were civilians."

16             That's transcript 13317 through 13318.

17             As Harland noted:

18             "When a civilian was killed by sniping, it cannot be attributed

19     as collateral damage."

20             P820, para 300.

21             The deliberate nature of the targeting of civilians through

22     sniping is underscored by the fact that Bosnian Serb snipers targeted

23     civilians who were engaged in clearly civilian activities, such as riding

24     bicycles, collecting water, or riding on trams.  And see P896, KDZ090,

25     P2923, P1762, page 39, P1638, para 183.


Page 28669

 1             The psychological impact of sniping and its intended impact was

 2     described by sniping expert, Patrick van der Weijden:

 3             "A victim killed by a sniper only affects the victim and the

 4     people in the direct vicinity, but the thought of never being safe from

 5     the enemy affects everybody.  Apart from being shot at, the anxiety

 6     mainly comes from not knowing where or exactly when the sniper will

 7     strike."

 8             P1620, page 8.

 9             And as General Fraser explained trams become a "favourite target"

10     of the snipers because of the psychological impact it had on the people

11     of the city.  P1762, page 39.

12             And in connection with these arguments by the accused, let me

13     also mention the inter-relationship in this context of the deprivation of

14     utilities because that -- those restrictions not only directly increased

15     the suffering of the civilian population and heightened the terror but it

16     also, as I alluded to a moment ago, made them more vulnerable to attack.

17     So as the Bosnian Serb side deprived the city of utilities and

18     humanitarian supplies, civilians, who then became targets, were forced to

19     go outside to collect food and water.

20             As Harland explained:

21             "The Serbs would often shell places where people gathered for

22     water because people had to gather there in larger numbers.  When they

23     were not lining up for water or food, people were normally hiding in

24     their apartments or in their cellars and would therefore be less

25     vulnerable to sniping and shelling."


Page 28670

 1             P820, paragraph 198.

 2             As we saw from P829, page 1 through 3, a weekly Sector Sarajevo

 3     report from June of 1995:

 4             "Civilians have been killed at water lines and market places.

 5     Negotiations to restore utilities are being blocked by the Serb military.

 6     UNHCR has brought in a small amount of food during the week, but next

 7     week's convoys have been cancelled by the Serbs following an incident in

 8     which the Bosnians shelled a convoy."

 9             Further on, the report provides additional details:

10             "Serb gunners have a killed large number of Bosnian civilians

11     this week, shelling water lines and market places.  Seven people were

12     killed and 12 injured while queueing for water in Dobrinja on Sunday,

13     18 June.  On Wednesday, 21 June, six people were killed and 15 injured in

14     another attack on a Dobrinja water line.  The same day, five people were

15     injured when a shell hit the Civljane outdoor market."

16             Now, on Monday, the accused attempted to suggest that,

17     notwithstanding this overwhelming body of evidence, there was no motive

18     for him and for the Bosnian Serb forces to terrorise Sarajevo.  You can

19     find that at 28611.  Actually, he asked the question rhetorically:  What

20     would have been the motive for us to terrorise Sarajevo?

21             And the evidence in this case provided a very powerful answer in

22     the form of evidence from a large number of witnesses.  And that is that

23     terrorising the city gave the Bosnian Serbs political leverage that they

24     would not otherwise have had.  As large numbers of international

25     observers concluded, collectively Sarajevo was basically held at


Page 28671

 1     gunpoint, threatened, and abused for 44 months to mete out punishment and

 2     extract concessions from the Bosnian government.  As General Rose

 3     explained, the shelling, sniping, and blockade of the city was:

 4             "... clearly to put pressure on the Bosnian government to bring

 5     about a peace deal on the Bosnian Serb terms."

 6             That's transcript 7271 through 7272.

 7             Harland identified this point in the context of shelling that, in

 8     his words:

 9             "... had no identifiable military tactical purpose but seemed

10     intended to keep the civilian population of Sarajevo locked down,

11     vulnerable, fearful, isolated."

12             P820, para 33.

13             And, indeed, the timing and intensity of the attacks and the

14     deprivations reflected that strategy.  Harland explained that the accused

15     would modulate the terror, increasing attacks on civilians in order to

16     influence negotiations and then periodically reducing attacks in order to

17     avoid any western military intervention.

18             "The overall strategy of Karadzic, having obtained 70 per cent of

19     Bosnia-Herzegovina, seemed to be try to modulate the level of suffering

20     in Sarajevo, to increase it, to encourage the Bosnians to accept Serb

21     peace, or to reduce it in the face of threats of western military

22     intervention, such as NATO air-strikes."

23             P820, para 36.

24             As KDZ450 noted, there was no strategy to concur the town but a

25     strategy to exert pressure on the authorities and the population.


Page 28672

 1             Bell told this Court:

 2             "By tightening the grip on the city economically and militarily,

 3     the Serb thoughts they could effect a peace deal favourable to

 4     themselves."

 5             P1996, para 60.

 6             And he described it as a "noose around the neck of the people"

 7     which could be tightened or loosened.

 8             And this form of collective punishment in response to -- was --

 9     was undertaken in response, as you've heard, to Bosnian military

10     offensives or sometimes in pure retribution for that.  So either to

11     publish collectively or to make the Bosnian government think twice about

12     whether to undertake further offensives.  And Banbury heard this from

13     Mladic himself, who acknowledged that the VRS would target civilians:

14             "... to punish the Bosnian government authorities for actions

15     elsewhere.  It was retaliation for something that was happening

16     elsewhere.  They were using sniping as a tool, a point of leverage, a way

17     to punish."

18             That's T13330 and 13331.

19             So, as an example, following the Bosnian Serbs' loss of the

20     Marshal Tito barracks, van Lynden witnessed:

21             "... wild scattered shelling across the city."

22             Which he said:

23             "... could only have been an expression of anger or was meant to

24     punish and frighten the population."

25             That's P926, para 56.


Page 28673

 1             Now, the accused suggested on Monday that the Bosnian Serb forces

 2     under his control practiced only a policy of "containment."  Now, that

 3     assertion misrepresents both the -- and it was his contention that this

 4     was the position of the UN witnesses who testified here.  But that

 5     submission by the accused misrepresents both the quantity and, indeed,

 6     the content of the testimony to which he alluded.

 7             UNMO Richard Mole was the only UN witness to refer to a

 8     containment strategy, and he explained what he meant and made it clear

 9     that it did not preclude pressure, coercion, and terror.  He explained:

10             "The Serbs risked more to trying to take Sarajevo militarily than

11     the possible advantages gained by doing so.  The position they were

12     already in allowed them to achieve their political gains.  They could do

13     so by applying pressure to the city to achieve their aims elsewhere.  If

14     they took the city militarily, they removed a pressure point which could

15     be used politically."

16             And that's at P1426, para 36.

17             And this observation, contrary to the accused's submission,

18     tracks the conclusions of other international observers.  So when

19     Major Thomas arrived Sarajevo in October of 1993, he received an order of

20     battle advising him that in Sarajevo:

21             "The primary aim of the Bosnian Serb army is political.  Their

22     intent is to put pressure on the Presidency to come to a political

23     settlement to end the war.  The secondary aim is to fix Bosnian forces in

24     Sarajevo so that they cannot threaten the Bosnian Serb army forces or be

25     used in other areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina."


Page 28674

 1             That's P1568, page 5.

 2             So whatever military benefit the Bosnian Serb forces and the

 3     Bosnian Serb leadership received by encircling the city, it was distinct

 4     from their wide-spread and organised campaign of violence against

 5     civilians which international witness after international witness

 6     recognised as a means of leveraging, attempting to leverage concessions

 7     or to collectively punish the population with bombs, bullets, and

 8     deprivations.

 9             Now, the accused also asserted on Monday that no incident has

10     been proved, and he did that in the context of a flurry of submissions,

11     but basically the submission was no incident was proved as having been

12     committed by the Serb side, either sniping or shelling.  So let me as

13     quickly as possible just try to address that with a couple of examples.

14             First of all, this, as we know, the Trial Chamber has already

15     taken judicial notice of facts that show generally and that were

16     buttressed over and over and over again by the testimony of

17     internationals that civilians in Bosnian-held areas of Sarajevo were

18     frequently targeted by gun-fire from SRK-controlled forces and areas of

19     Grbavica, Ozrenska, Spicasta Stijena, Sirokaca, et cetera.  And those are

20     adjudicated facts 69, 70, 81, 121, 123, 124, 76, 77, and so on.  And has

21     taken judicial notice of what it heard of over and over again during the

22     course of the case, too, that civilians were targeted during funerals, in

23     ambulances, in hospitals, in trams, when driving, or cycling, at home, or

24     fetching water.  That's adjudicated facts 111 through 114.

25             It's taken judicial notice of the fact that children were


Page 28675

 1     targeted.  Adjudicated facts 115 to 910.

 2             And specific areas throughout Sarajevo became notorious as

 3     sources of sniping fire against civilians.  Adjudicated fact 120.

 4     Including the Jewish cemetery, the Orthodox church, the school for the

 5     blind in Nedzarici, and so on.  See adjudicated fact 125.

 6             And against that backdrop, the Trial Chamber has taken judicial

 7     notice of specific other incidents and heard considerable evidence about

 8     those.  Let me just focus on, if I may, two specific sniping incidents,

 9     and then I will move onto quickly discuss shelling, I hope.

10             Two examples, F15.  And that involves a public tram that was shot

11     on the 27th of February, 1995, leaving 30 bullet-holes and marks on the

12     left side of the tram.  That's adjudicated fact 2983.

13             The Court will recall that among the victims of that attack wer

14     Alma Mulaosmanovic-Cehajic and Alija Holjan [phoen].  That's adjudicated

15     fact 2979.

16             Origin of fire was from high-rise buildings in Grbavica.  Shots

17     were fired by a member of the SRK.  See 2984.

18             Those facts are more than sufficient, of course, to establish

19     deliberate targeting of civilians by SRK forces, but the Prosecution has

20     supplemented and corroborated those facts with a range of investigative

21     expert and eye-witness evidence, confirming that the incident location

22     was exposed to a direct and clear line of fire from those high-rise

23     apartments, the ones that were notorious SRK sniping positions, and from

24     which the civilian population in the area was regularly targeted.  That

25     is P492, page 10.


Page 28676

 1             In April of 1996 local investigators entered apartments in each

 2     of those buildings and found numerous apartments above the tenth floor

 3     that had been converted into sniper locations.  T7933.

 4             Photographs documenting the unobstructed sight-lines from the gun

 5     holes in those apartments show that at least eight of those sniper

 6     positions were trained on the location of the incident, F15.

 7     That's P1738.  Or similarly, F9.  So the Chamber has already found that

 8     on the early evening of the 26th of June, 1994, teenagers - that's

 9     Senela Muratovic and Medina Omerovic - were walking to Omerovic's

10     apartment on what was then Djure Jaksica Street when Muratovic was hit by

11     a single sniper shot to her right shoulder, fired from the area of the

12     school for the blind in a known sniping, SRK sniping location, as I

13     mentioned.  You can see adjudicated fact 222, 228, 224, 226, and Exhibit

14     P2207.  The distance between the origin of fire and the position of the

15     victim was about 200 metres, see 232; no fighting was ongoing, see 229; a

16     Muratovic, a civilian, was deliberately targeted from SRK controlled

17     territory, 22 -- 233.  And, again, while those facts are more than

18     sufficient to establish the deliberate targeting.

19             Again, the Prosecution have supplemented and corroborated those

20     facts with the evidence which includes the UNMO daily sitrep, that's

21     P1600, which reports that a few days after F9, on July 11, a 17-year-old

22     boy had been wounded by sniper fire near the house for blind people,

23     specifying that there had been three sniping incidents all involving

24     civilians in the same spot in the last few days and that they suspected

25     that the SRK was responsible for them.  And then P1601 is an UNMO command


Page 28677

 1     daily sitrep from the 13th of July, 1994, reporting that the SRK

 2     commander of the 1st Battalion of the Ilidza Brigade admitted to UNMO

 3     that SRK had been sniping from the house for blind people.  Again, that's

 4     Exhibit P1601.

 5             And let me turn to shelling.  Same generalised allegation by the

 6     accused.  In that connection I would like to remind the Court of the

 7     adjudicated facts relating to G10 on April 7th, 1995, where a modified

 8     air boom fell and destroyed the house of Ziba Subo in Hrasnica - that's

 9     3034 though 303 -- and 3037 - killing civilian and injuring others - 3038

10     - with extensive destruction in the area, including the destruction of

11     their homes.  See also 3040 indicating the area from which the air bomb

12     was fired an area controlled by a SRK.  The day before the incident, as

13     we see in Exhibit P1201, SRK commander Dragomir Milosevic ordered the

14     Ilidza Brigade to prepare a launcher with an air bomb and transport the

15     bomb for launching, and to select the most profitable target in Hrasnice

16     or Sokolovic Kolonija where the greatest casualties and material damage

17     would be inflicted.  And the day of the incident, 7 April 1995, the SRK's

18     daily report to the VRS Main Staff by Milosevic reported that their

19     forces had responded to enemy fire by, among other things, launching a

20     250 kilogram air bomb at the centre of Hrasnica.

21             You heard from Thorbjorn Overgard about what he saw when he

22     arrived at the site:

23             "We found the house totally demolished.  There was nothing,  not

24     a brick standing nearby.  One of the [indiscernible] nearly.

25             Overgard, P2058, pages 15 through 17, and you saw the extent of


Page 28678

 1     the damage at P465, and in addition in Martin Bell's report at P2041.

 2             Now part of the accused's contention was that the Prosecution

 3     didn't prove that the Serbs fired more than the Muslims or that the

 4     Prosecution didn't prove that the Serbs fired first.  Well, let me

 5     address those quickly.  First of all, with respect to the first

 6     assertion, Konings estimated that mortar and artillery fire in Sarajevo

 7     was overwhelmingly of Serb origin, perhaps 100:1, P1953, page 12.

 8             And with respect to the latter contention I dealt with that to

 9     some extent earlier, noting the -- the nature of the accused's assertion

10     that the focus should be on whether or not a shell or mortar or bullet

11     was fired before the -- his forces fired and indicating that that

12     misplaces the focus because the focus needs to be, as we heard from

13     General Wilson and others, on the nature of the return fire, whether it

14     was indiscriminate, disproportionate, punitive, and so on.

15             But let me respond to that claim on its face that there's no

16     proof that Serbs fired first with just two examples:  G7 and G6.

17             So in G7, that's an incident that occurred on the 4th of

18     February, 1994.  Three, 120-millimetre mortar shells struck a residential

19     building in Dobrinja.  And those shells killed at least eight civilians,

20     including a child, and injured at least 22 people, including, two

21     children.  One shell hit a concrete wall in the backyard of an apartment,

22     another impacted in the area of a playground, another hit a window frame

23     on the ground floor apartment.  There were more than 100 civilians in an

24     open area near the parking garage, mostly children, when the shelling

25     took place.


Page 28679

 1             Some of the victims were cueing for humanitarian aid.  That's

 2     P156.  There were no military units or military personnel where the

 3     humanitarian aid was being unloaded or close to these sites.  That's AF

 4     318 though 319, 323.  A detailed investigation was undertaken of the two

 5     impacts that resulted in the civilian casualties.  This -- if you see

 6     AF 320 you can see that the origin of fire was SRK held territory and we

 7     heard evidence they were fired from the Energoinvest complex of buildings

 8     which was controlled by the SRK.  Not only were these civilians engaged

 9     in peaceful activities, but as you heard from Witness KDZ450, he

10     specifically cited this as an example of Serbs opening fire on

11     Bosnian Muslim territory without being provoked by the Bosnian forces.

12     He specified:

13             "Dobrinja was not a military target and it only led to civilian

14     death, especially children."

15             That's KDZ450 at transcript 10618.

16             And similarly, G6 that's 22nd of January, 1994, two 82-millimetre

17     mortar shells and one, 120-millimetre mortar shelled into the residential

18     neighbourhood of Alipasino Polje, this time killing six children and

19     greatly wounding three additional children and one adult civilian.  Now,

20     at the time of the shelling, there were two groups of children playing in

21     the street and soon after the first mortar strike, two shells exploded

22     near the entrances to nearby apartment buildings killing many of the

23     children who were running to take cover after the initial explosion.

24             These are adjudicated facts 283, 286, 287, and 292.  Now, this

25     attack took place on an otherwise quiet day during a lull in hostilities,


Page 28680

 1     no activity of a military nature was underway.  There were no soldiers to

 2     be seen in the vicinity.  That's adjudicated facts 298 and 299.

 3             Indeed, KDZ477 recalled that:

 4             "For an a number of days there hadn't been any shelling, so I

 5     know this was sudden.  I think that the children went out to the play in

 6     the snow because there had not been any shelling, not only there but also

 7     in the broader area.  Otherwise they wouldn't have been outside."

 8             That's at transcript 10923.

 9             Now this Trial Chamber has also received documentary evidence

10     such as the UNMO report of military activity which states that:

11             "An artillery barrage broke a period of relative quiet in the

12     city, killing six children and critically injuring at least three others

13     as they played together in the snow."

14             P1700.  Based on extensively analysis and testimony from local

15     and UN investigators as well ballistics expert -- was established during

16     the Galic trial and accepted as adjudicated fact in this trial that the

17     impact traces from the shells were elliptical and considerably more

18     pronounced to the west leading to the conclusion as accepted here as well

19     that the three shells were fired from SRK positions to the west of

20     Alipasino Polje and originating from SRK territory and forces.  Again,

21     two incidents which directly belie a conclusion which in and of itself

22     indicates or was a predicate to the retaliatory and collective punishment

23     fire of the Bosnian Serb forces.

24             On Monday the accused also indicated that the Prosecution did not

25     prove that he had a negative attitude towards civilian matters or the


Page 28681

 1     welfare of civilians, and there had been no interference with

 2     humanitarian aid or humanitarian efforts in order to contribute to the

 3     suffering of civilians.

 4             That assertion is belied by the weight of the evidence and

 5     directly contradicted by it, as with the other submissions.  So Banbury,

 6     for example, explained that:

 7             "As Karadzic constantly demonstrated he could open or close, in

 8     this case the airport, whenever he wished."

 9             And that this power:

10             "Provided particularly powerfully leverage to the Bosnian Serb

11     leadership."

12             That's P2451, paragraph 65 and 211.

13             And he gave evidence of the specific example in which the accused

14     closed the airport, refused to open it while the Bosnian Serbs were under

15     sanctions and threatened to impose additional restrictions.  That's

16     P2451, paragraphs 143 through 145.

17             There's related comment in connection with that, where the

18     accused suggested that all aid received by the population of Sarajevo

19     was -- resulted from his beneficence and any drop of water, I think he

20     referred to, they were response for, and the Prosecution did not show

21     efforts to sabotage the civilian life in Sarajevo.  Again, that is

22     contradicted by the evidence from observers who were present and dealt

23     directly with the accused and his forces.

24             So on the 20th of September, 1994, for example, in meetings

25     involving General Rose and David Harland, in the context of a Bosnian


Page 28682

 1     attack out of Sarajevo two days earlier, the accused threatened to

 2     "flatten the Presidency," unquote, "if there were a repetition of the

 3     episode," unquote.

 4             He also expressed his concern that the Security Council would

 5     tighten sanctions on the RS and said this would put UNPROFOR in the

 6     position of having sided with the enemy.  In his words, that is, the

 7     accused's words:

 8             "If the international community treats us like a beast then we

 9     will behave like a beast."

10             He specifically mentioned in this regard "the use of utilities as

11     a means of war."

12             And that's P834, page 1 through 2.

13             As General Rose explained, the Serbs responded to the assaults of

14     the Bosnian army by cutting off the electricity and gas and halting the

15     flow of commercial goods and aid convoys to Sarajevo.  That's P1638,

16     para 118.

17             Mr. President, as before, I may return to some aspects of

18     Counts 9 and 10, but in order not to intrude improperly, my view on our

19     submissions related to other counts, I want to move to the counts related

20     to Srebrenica.

21             Your Honours, during the Prosecution's opening statement, we

22     explained some of the evidence that would be introduced regarding the

23     accused's responsibility for Count 2 and the other Srebrenica-related

24     counts of the case.  And as you have seen and as the evidence shows,

25     those assertions are wholly supported by the evidence in this case.  So,


Page 28683

 1     for example, I spoke about the fact that the accused ordered the

 2     operation to take Srebrenica which was a culmination of his efforts to

 3     cleanse Eastern Bosnia.  The evidence shows that to be the case.  P02276,

 4     the 9 July VRS Main Staff order; P1412, at page 111; P1415, at pages 84

 5     and 86.  The evidence also shows that he was informed of the progress of

 6     the operation throughout the course of the operation by various means.

 7     Including from General Mladic himself, from VRS reports, from MUP

 8     reports, from state security reports.  And see the testimony of

 9     Richard Butler, of 17 April 2012, T27473 through 27474, explaining that

10     the accused received information from three chains.  The VRS, the MUP,

11     and state security.

12             The evidence shows that the accused had direct contact with

13     Mladic, maintained direct contact also with his hand selected civilian

14     commissioner for the area.  And for that, see P04911, page 48; P04556,

15     page 35 - it's Prmovic [phoen] and Ristic; D0205, the

16     11 July presidential directive appointing Deronjic the military civilian

17     commissioner; P4374, the Katanic amalgamated statement at paragraph 70

18     stating that Deronjic had daily telephone contact with Karadzic.

19             The evidence demonstrates that the accused knew that the

20     population was being moved out as it was happening - that's P4464, 13

21     July VRS Main Staff report - that he ordered the removal of men, that is

22     the Muslim prisoners, from an area where there was a risk they would be

23     seen by the internationals.  That's P4618, the intercept of 13 July with

24     Deronjic.  See also the Butler testimony at T27557 through 27560 stating

25     that international convoys were waiting to enter Bratunac on 13 July.


Page 28684

 1     And the evidence supports the -- that the accused knew that men were

 2     being killed.  In that regard, see P02242, the accused's agenda entry of

 3     14 July 1991 about his meeting with Deronjic; see P4382, the

 4     14 July video SRT news report of the meeting with Deronjic; see P304374,

 5     paragraph 70, about the accused's daily telephone contact with Deronjic;

 6     P4374, paragraph 72, that's Katanic stating that he believed Deronjic had

 7     indeed reported the killings to the accused.  See his testimony at

 8     T24466.

 9             THE INTERPRETER:  Could Mr. Tieger kindly slow down a little for

10     the interpreters, please.

11             MR. TIEGER:  Just referring to the testimony found at transcript

12     page 24466, stating that Karadzic was a Deronjic superior.

13             See his testimony at 24474, stating that on 13 July Deronjic told

14     Katanic about the killings.  And see closed session testimony at 24224,

15     to 24225 about an order that Deronjic gave on the 13th of July to load

16     the bodies at Kravica and that he later gave the order to dig the grave

17     at Glogova.

18             And the evidence demonstrates, as we asserted in the opening,

19     that the accused covered up the mass expulsions and the murders and

20     indeed continues to do so to this very day.  See P04359, that's the

21     "El Pais" interview where the accused denies any crime; P05235, that's

22     the 17 July David Frost interview where the accused states there are no

23     missing men; the Erdemovic testimony on 27th of February, 2012, T25356

24     and 25357; and see P3163, e-court page 6, an order issued by the accused

25     on 23rd of March, 1996:


Page 28685

 1             "The Republika Srpska Army Main Staff and the Ministry of

 2     Interior shall immediately form a mixed expert commission to fully

 3     investigate and determine the facts regarding the alleged discovery of

 4     two decomposed bodies at the scene of earlier battles with the Muslim

 5     side in the Pilica area in the Zvornik municipality."

 6             And, of course, as we asserted in the opening and as you've seen

 7     in the evidence, his expression of regret about the operation was only

 8     that some of the Muslims had gotten away, and, for that, see the

 9     52nd Session -- the 52nd Session of the Bosnian Serb Assembly on

10     6th of August, 1995, pages 23 through 24.

11             And it is against that backdrop and a great deal of other

12     evidence that I will address some of the specific assertions, some of the

13     misrepresentations made by the accused on Monday.

14             At transcript 28588 on Monday, the accused claimed that it was

15     proven:

16             "Beyond any doubt that the Serbian army did not have contact with

17     the population in Srebrenica, did not have any combat contact with the

18     28th division, did not have any contact with the population for this

19     contact occurred in Potocari."

20             Now, this assertion, as others, is simply false, patently false

21     indeed.  Just to give one example, we have clear evidence in the record

22     that the VRS and specifically the 10th Sabotage Detachment, which as you

23     know was a unit directly attached to the VRS Main Staff, did indeed have

24     contact with some elderly people as well as able bodied Muslim men who

25     surrendered to them in the centre of Srebrenica.  And it's instructed


Page 28686

 1     that not only is it untrue that they didn't have any contact but the

 2     nature of the contact is significant.  And to see the nature of the

 3     contact, we can turn to e-court -- turn to P4202, page 55 in e-court.  On

 4     the express order of their commander, Lieutenant Milorad Pelemis, they

 5     slit the Muslim man's throat and left his body lying in the centre of

 6     square of Srebrenica in front of a bank across the square from the

 7     mosque.  You can see his blood flowing down the street.

 8             Erdemovic testified about that.  You can also find that at P332

 9     and at T10946, 10947.  And he said:

10             "He came out," that's this man we see on screen, "surrendered and

11     said that he was not in the army.  They had no problem with the Serbs,

12     had nothing against Serbs, something like that, I can't remember exactly

13     the words."

14             Erdemovic testified that there was no fierce fighting at the time

15     and VRS soldiers began to mistreat the man and that:

16             "Not long after that Pelemis ordered a Vlasenica Platoon member

17     of the 10th Sabotage Detachment to slit the man's throat.  And he was

18     executed immediately in that manner."

19             So, there is indeed evidence of contact, and in this case,

20     contact between an elite unit of the Serbian army and the population in

21     Srebrenica before the events in Potocari.  A single piece of evidence

22     among others that repulse or rebuts the accused's assertion that murder

23     didn't occur where the military or the MUP had a strong presence or that

24     -- in that -- he made that assertion at 28591, or that commanders didn't

25     know about murders.  That's an assertion at 28594, and that there was no


Page 28687

 1     intent to forcibly remove the population of Srebrenica.  That's -- he

 2     said that at 28588.

 3             The accused also claimed that:

 4             "Silence reined everywhere with regard to the mass executions

 5     after the fall of Srebrenica."

 6             A suggestion that people didn't know and certainly he couldn't

 7     know what was going on.  To the contrary, the Prosecution has shown that

 8     in his role as RS president and supreme commander of the RS forces, the

 9     accused was constantly kept abreast of developments on the ground and

10     knew about the actions and direct implications of those actions of his

11     forces in the murder operation at the time of the events.  Now he asked

12     sort of rhetorically, How could the president of the republic possibly

13     know?  And here are some of the evidence in response.

14             First of all, as expert witness Butler indicated, the murder

15     operation was organised and implemented like any other military

16     operation.  The same military bureaucracy and flow of information:

17             "The same process and procedures of the Drina Corps, the Zvornik

18     Brigade and the Bratunac Brigade for the most part would use as part of

19     their everyday military operations were also followed for their role on

20     the conduct of the crimes.  The military chain of command in that regard

21     worked as it's supposed to."

22             That's at type T27635.  The VRS and MUP reports were directed to

23     President Karadzic.  P02276, P3054, P4464, P4457, P5137.  These reports

24     clearly indicate that he was kept abreast of the development of the

25     operations on the ground.  He regularly met with civilian, military, and


Page 28688

 1     MUP authorities.  For example, he met on the 13th, the 14th, the 15th,

 2     and the 18th of July with deputy minister of interior Kovac who, in turn,

 3     received daily reports of the development of the operation on the ground.

 4     And for that, see P2242, e-court page -- pages 91 through 93.

 5             Now, two examples of the accused's direct knowledge include

 6     this -- these.  On 14th of July, there's a very urgent VRS Main Staff

 7     daily report directed to the RS president.  P4457.  And it reported to

 8     the accused that VRS forces were "scouring the terrain and receiving a

 9     large number of Muslim fugitives who are surrendering to them."

10             Another, D02002.  On the 16th of July at 1615 hours, the

11     Main Staff reported to Mladic that the accused had called because he had

12     been informed that Pandurevic had arranged for the Muslim's safe passage

13     over their territory.  In other words, as soon as the accused was

14     informed that Pandurevic had opened the corridor in contravention of the

15     order to destroy the Muslim column, Karadzic called the Main Staff to

16     further inquire about it.

17             Now, the accused also suggested -- or in the course of these

18     submissions suggested that the people in the chain of command did not

19     know what was happening.  I'm going to point to just one piece of

20     testimony that contradicts that powerfully, but I need to go into private

21     session to do so.  And that's going to be a piece of testimony that

22     indicates clearly that the VRS chain of command knew of the order to kill

23     the prisoners in Zvornik.

24             So if we could go to -- into private session, I'd like to read

25     what was said about that.


Page 28689

 1             JUDGE KWON:  Yes.  Could the Chamber move into private session.

 2                           [Private session]

 3   (redacted)

 4   (redacted)

 5   (redacted)

 6   (redacted)

 7   (redacted)

 8   (redacted)

 9   (redacted)

10   (redacted)

11   (redacted)

12   (redacted)

13   (redacted)

14   (redacted)

15   (redacted)

16   (redacted)

17   (redacted)

18   (redacted)

19                           [Open session]

20             JUDGE KWON:  Yes, we are now in open session, Mr. Tieger.

21             MR. TIEGER:  Thank you.

22             And, finally, in this connection, let me just mention the

23     accused's contacts with Miroslav Deronjic, the man he appointed the

24     civilian commissioner of the Serbian municipality of Srebrenica the very

25     same day that the Serbian forces took over the enclave.  That's D02055.


Page 28690

 1             And I might mention parenthetically that in chronological terms

 2     this is far from the first time that the Court has heard reference to

 3     Deronjic's role in the efforts of the Bosnian Serb forces and authorities

 4     to secure territory in Eastern Bosnia.  You will recall his role in the

 5     cleansing of the Bratunac municipality in 1992.  Now we see him

 6     personally appointed by the accused as the civilian commission of the

 7     Serbian municipality of Srebrenica.  But in that connection, I want to

 8     look at the critical time of the 13th and 14th of July.  We know as I've

 9     stated earlier that on the evening of the 13th Deronjic was well aware of

10     the Kravica massacre and was busy covering it up.  In particular, on the

11     evening of the 13th, he ordered that a mass grave be dug in Glogova for

12     those killed at Kravica.  You will find that in closed testimony at

13     T24224 through 227.

14             On that very evening, the accused and Deronjic discussed the

15     issue of prisoners over the phone.  That's P04618.  The morning after, on

16     July 14th, while the prisoners were still being transported to the

17     Zvornik area, the accused personally met Deronjic.  That's P2242, e-court

18     page 91, and also P04382.  These circumstances, given the nature of the

19     timing, the nature of the role of the respective parties, the nature of

20     their long-standing connection are more than sufficient by themselves to

21     show beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused was informed about the

22     murder operation.

23             Now, the accused has also argued that directive 7.1, does not

24     contain the language that can be found in directive 7.  And that in that

25     connection, humanitarian aid did not cease, and that indeed, he asserts


Page 28691

 1     that convoys "ceaselessly travelled," and that the children in Srebrenica

 2     were well nourished and healthy.

 3             Let me address both of these claims since they are all connected.

 4             First of all, the evidence has shown clearly that directive 7.1

 5     did not supplant, replace, or in any way negate directive 7.  As

 6     explained by military expert Butler:

 7             "What directive 7.1 represents is a technical expansions of the

 8     goals of directive 7 more designed for military planners."

 9             That's T27450, lines 11 through 17.

10             Now, the evidence shows and the Prosecution has shown that,

11     consistent with directive 7, convoys were indeed let through sporadically

12     and that complies with and follows through on the orders given in

13     directive 7, which is P838:

14             "Through the planned and unobtrusively restrictive issuing of

15     permits.  Reduce and limit the logistics support of UNPROFOR to the

16     enclaves and the supply of material resources to the Muslim population

17     making them dependant on our goodwill, while, at the same time, avoiding

18     condemnation by the international community and international public

19     opinion."

20             Indeed specifically referring to the section on the Drina Corps

21     in directive 7, that is, the section that reads, in part:

22             "By planned and well thought out combat operations, create an

23     unbearable situation of total insecurity with no hope of further survival

24     or life for the inhabitants of Srebrenica and Zepa."

25             General Milovanovic testified that this task was assigned to the


Page 28692

 1     Drina Corps directly by the Supreme Command.  That's T25504, lines 23

 2     through 24.

 3             And P4481, Krivaja 95, the Drina Corps plan to attack Srebrenica

 4     refers to directive 7 and 7.1, showing that directive 7 didn't supplant

 5     or replace directive 7.  And beyond that, the accused himself stated that

 6     Krstic planted the Srebrenica operation in front of him.  That's at

 7     interview P4555 and P5121, and indeed while watching the television

 8     coverage on July 14th, 1995, the accused bragged to Witness Djordjevic

 9     that the attack on Srebrenica was part of "my order number 7."

10             And that it was intended to bring "the temperature to the boiling

11     point."

12             That's T25906 through 25908, also see P4515 at e-court page 12.

13             And the evidence has shown that the humanitarian situation in the

14     enclave, due to the restriction on humanitarian aid, a restriction in

15     accordance with directive 7 was particularly dire.

16             Resulting in a lack of food for the Muslim civilians in the

17     enclave, these convoy restrictions can be linked directly to the accused,

18     as the evidence shows that the accused was directly involved in the

19     issuance of convoy permits.  You can see that, for example, in P4543, his

20     decision on forming a state committee for co-operation with the UN and

21     international humanitarian organisations.  This decision of 14 March 1995

22     only a few days after the issuance of directive 7 makes clear that

23     permits for the movement of convoys shall be issued by the co-ordinating

24     body pursuant to the state committee's decision.  That's Article 6.

25             Now, these restrictions also strangle DutchBat who with their --


Page 28693

 1     who received their last fuel supply in February of 1995.  You heard the

 2     testimony of Momir Nikolic that the problems with the supply of DutchBat

 3     intensified during the period between March or April and the fall of

 4     Srebrenica.  So between those two periods of time.  And that's T24573.

 5     And, as a result, DutchBat was unable to do its job because of the lack

 6     of logistical support, just as directive 7 had ordered and envisioned.

 7             Now, the accused also argued on Monday that the Muslim population

 8     left voluntarily and that the "evacuation" was favoured by the

 9     authorities.  That's -- he said that at T28588.  This is a submission

10     which is contrary to voluminous material received by the Trial Chamber.

11     To the contrary, the clear intent to deport the population was readily

12     apparent in a 1994 Bratunac Brigade order from Commander Ognjenovic who

13     stated clearly that the goal was an "entirely Serbian Podrinje," and

14     that:

15             "The enemy's life has to be made unbearable and their temporary

16     stay in the enclave impossible so that they leave the enclave en masse as

17     soon as possible, realising that they cannot survive there."

18             That's P4075.  It's dated July 4th, 1994.

19             And in considering this matter and the accused's submission,

20     particular attention should be paid to the conditions, the desperate

21     conditions that the accused and the VRS imposed on the enclave in order

22     to make life unbearable in the months leading up to the attack which

23     contributed to the population's lack of any choice but to leave.

24             So let's look first at food supply and it's impact on the

25     voluntariness of any decision to leave the enclave.


Page 28694

 1             As you've heard, one method by which the VRS and the accused

 2     ensured that the Muslim population was forced to leave was through lack

 3     of food.  You heard from several DutchBat witnesses who testified about

 4     the lack of food in the enclave.  And you no doubt recall

 5     Witness Rutten's photo of the DutchBat garbage dump where the Muslim

 6     population routinely gathered with the hopes of finding anything to eat.

 7     This lack of food, again, was directly linked to restrictions on

 8     humanitarian convoys, restrictions were ordered by the accused in

 9     directive 7.

10             As to the accused's submission that even Prosecution witness

11     Schmitz testified about seeing healthy children and that that was a sign

12     of sufficient food, the Trial Chamber need only recall the testimony of

13     Mirsada Malagic, a woman who lost her husband and two sons, and who told

14     this Chamber about people who died of starvation and the fact that she

15     herself nearly succumbed, and as she explained:  Even if you're starving

16     and your kids are hungry too, you sacrifice for them.  T23467.

17             And if there was food to be had, as Christine Schmitz told the

18     Trial Chamber, people would only beg for it after dark because they felt

19     ashamed.  It is one reflection of the impact of the purposeful

20     restriction of food supplies in order to ensure the departure of the

21     Muslim population.  Another was shelling.  And you heard testimony about

22     shelling.  If there was any doubt about whether or not civilians were

23     targeted, you could only -- you need only turn to the testimony of

24     Colonel Kingori whose job, in part, was to monitor the shelling itself.

25     He testified:


Page 28695

 1             "The way the shelling was done was definitely aimed at the

 2     residents of the place."

 3             That's P04140, at paragraph 73, e-court page 17.

 4             Finally, even if Muslims reached Potocari under those

 5     circumstances, the VRS ensured that they were presented with no option

 6     but to leave.  Now, you heard witnesses describing the population as

 7     "totally exhausted, panicked, fearful, with death in their eyes."

 8             And while those people waited in Potocari, hoping to escape from

 9     the grasp of those who had starved and shelled them, General Mladic

10     himself provided further confirmation of the real lack of choice that

11     existed.  In an intercept on 12th, he stated:

12             "We will evacuate them all, those who want to leave, and those

13     who do not."

14             P4254.

15             A few days later on the 16th of July, 1995, Zvornik Brigade

16     Commander Pandurevic emphasised that the job was not done until all the

17     Muslims had been forced out:

18              "I consider that the Krivaja 95 operation is not complete as

19     long as a single enemy soldier or civilian remains behind the front

20     line."

21             P00180.

22             Turn to the accused's assertion at transcript page 28591 that

23     there were no killings in Potocari.  This is simply false.  Both

24     Scheduled Incidents for Potocari killings, that is, E14.1, the killing of

25     nine men near the UN compound and E14.2, the killing of one man near the


Page 28696

 1     white house, have been proven by the evidence.  And, again, one only need

 2     to look at the testimony of Rutten and Groenewegen.  Johannes Rutten

 3     stated at P3948, paragraph 70, the following".

 4             "As we got into the meadow, we saw that the men were shot down.

 5     I inspected all the men that were on the ground.  They were all civilian

 6     men, at least they had civilian clothes on.  There were nine of them.

 7     They were lying with their faces toward the stream.  Two were lying on

 8     their sides as if they had looked back.  The rest of them were lying with

 9     their faces to the stream.  They had all shots at their back at heart

10     height.  There were shots of small calibre weapons.  The men were all

11     about 45 to 55 years old.  The blood was still running.  There were no

12     flies on them, and it was very warm that day so you could easily say that

13     it had not been longing ago that they were shoot.  The bodies were warm."

14             And Paul Groenewegen at P4 -- 4167, paragraph 61:

15             "I saw the soldiers placing the man with his face to the wall,

16     and from a distance of about 3 metres, shoot him through the head.  Just

17     before that, my attention had already been attracted then as well by

18     shouting and it was the same person that was concerned, and I recognised

19     him the second time about 10 to 15 minutes past between me first seeing

20     him and the execution.  The man was wearing civilian clothes, blue jeans

21     and a blue-green sweater.  As far as I could see, he was not armed."

22             And let me turn next to the accused's assertion that no killings

23     took place before the Kravica executions.  This is another assertion that

24     is wrong.  The Kravica warehouse killings were not the first.  The

25     executions at Jadar river took place on the 13th of July at sometime


Page 28697

 1     before noon.

 2             A Jadar river survivor testified about the executions - excuse

 3     me - and the timing which was sometime before noon on the 13th of July.

 4     See P00335.  It's a public redacted version.  See also adjudicated fact

 5     1689.  On the morning of 13 July, 16 Bosnian Muslim men who had been

 6     captured from the column were transported by bus from the warehouse in

 7     Konjevic Polje to the Jadar riverbank.  Amongst them was a 15-year-old

 8     boy.

 9             And as a reminder and in connection with a suggestion made by the

10     accused in regard to the timing of the events, the mass killings

11     continued during and after the Kravica killings with the executions at

12     Sandici meadow and later at Luka school, which further undercuts the

13     accused's suggestion that the events were the results of chaos.

14             You also heard that the accused's submission that no killings

15     took place in areas where "there was a greater military or a police

16     presence" or where state authorities were present or with the knowledge

17     or approval of state authorities.  And given the weight of the evidence,

18     this submission is patently untrue, even absurd, and cannot have been

19     intended for the Court that was -- or for those of us who were following

20     the evidence in the case.  The opposite is true.  The mass executions

21     were carried out in an organised manner by the VRS and MUP and under the

22     noses of the hand-picked civilian authorities.  I already spoke about

23     Deronjic and the burial of the bodies of those murdered in Kravica, their

24     burial in Glogova.  KDZ320 was informed by Beara while prisoners who were

25     still alive in Zvornik that they would be killed.  And that the


Page 28698

 1     assistance of the local authorities was needed to bury the bodies.

 2     That's P4989, public redacted version, 4990 and transcript 7940 through

 3     7945.

 4             The mass executions in Orahovac were carried out at least in part

 5     by Zvornik Brigade 4th Battalion soldiers, such as Gojko Simic.  And you

 6     can look to P768, transcript 711 through 725, regarding the recognition

 7     of Simic, his death certificate indicating that he was a member of the

 8     4th Battalion.  That's P45 -- P4976.

 9             In Kozluk, it was the Zvornik Brigade 2nd Battalion and the

10     Zvornik Brigade MPs and uniformed MUP members who were present.  That's

11     KDZ496.  P386, or public redacted 387, transcript 32702.  And you can see

12     also in that connection KDZ105.  The commander of the 2nd Battalion,

13     P342, Dragan Jovic.  KDZ257.  2nd Battalion driver for Sreco Acimovic,

14     and you can see that at P364.  Veljko Ivanovic.  KDZ479, 2nd Battalion

15     driver, P383.

16             Next to the Pilica cultural hall at the time of the executions

17     there was a check-point of the Republika Srpska civilian police.  Can you

18     see P332, transcript 10983 and transcript 10984.  And the murders in

19     Branjevo were carried out by the 10th Sabotage Detachment of the VRS

20     Main Staff, the same unit which murdered the man in the very centre of

21     Srebrenica whose picture we saw a bit earlier.

22             Now, you can find evidence of the systematic nature of the

23     operation and the presence of VRS -- VRS, MUP and civilian authority

24     forces everywhere in various pieces of evidence as I've only touched

25     upon.  But nothing could be clearer regarding the widespread knowledge


Page 28699

 1     and participation of the VRS and MUP and command levels than the

 2     statement I referred to in private session before.  And in that regard,

 3     if I could return to private session to amplify on that just a bit and

 4     further underscore the weight of the evidence.

 5             JUDGE KWON:  Yes.

 6                           [Private session]

 7   (redacted)

 8   (redacted)

 9   (redacted)

10   (redacted)

11   (redacted)

12   (redacted)

13   (redacted)

14   (redacted)

15   (redacted)

16   (redacted)

17   (redacted)

18   (redacted)

19   (redacted)

20   (redacted)

21                           [Open session]

22             JUDGE KWON:  Yes, Mr. Tieger.

23             MR. TIEGER:  And finally I'd like to conclude with respect to

24     Count 2 and the related counts in connection with the events in

25     Srebrenica by focussing very briefly on the accused's argument that there


Page 28700

 1     was no intent to destroy the Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica.

 2             Your Honours to the contrary, the evidence demonstrates that the

 3     crimes, murder, cruel and inhumane treatment by terrorising and beating

 4     in Potocari and beating before execution, all of these crimes were

 5     perpetrated with genocidal intent.

 6             Let me point to just to some of the evidence.  The scale and

 7     nature of the operation, the systematic and organised manner in which it

 8     was carried out, the methodical attempt to eliminate every single Bosnian

 9     Muslim male of Srebrenica other than some children and a few elderly men.

10     The accused himself alluded to the number of victims.  The number of

11     victims the Prosecution has established that at least 6.772

12     Bosnian Muslim men were killed by Bosnian Serb forces under the command

13     of the accused in the execution of this plan, this genocidal plan.  All

14     of this can only be explained by the clear intention to destroy the group

15     as such.

16             On the 6th of August, when the international media and

17     organisations became fully aware of mass executions, or at least had

18     sufficient knowledge of what had happened to be desperately seeking

19     explanations, and the matter was alive in the media, and in international

20     and political circles, the accused addressed events in Srebrenica.  He

21     expressed some regret but not for the crime.  He regretted that some

22     9.000 men had survived, that General Krstic could not finish it all.

23             Your Honours, these are merely some of the pieces of evidence,

24     and that -- that's -- by the way, that's P1412.  Those are merely some of

25     the pieces of evidence indicating that genocide was committed by the


Page 28701

 1     Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica and that the accused, the supreme

 2     commander of these forces, was engaged in his role with the intent

 3     required by the Statute and the elements of genocide, the intent to

 4     destroy the Bosnian Muslims in whole or in part, as such.

 5             Mr. President, I would be moving on to another portion of our

 6     submissions.  I think, given the time, it's probably best to adjourn and

 7     resume after the lunch break.

 8             JUDGE KWON:  Thank you.  We'll take a break for an hour and

 9     resume at 1.30.

10             JUDGE MORRISON:  Mr. Tieger, can you assist on how much longer

11     you think you will be.

12             MR. TIEGER:  I don't think I'll -- well, I'm doing a bit of

13     guess-work.  I don't think it will take the full next session, but I

14     think, as -- a significant portion of it.

15             So if I -- I answer that in considering that perhaps the Court

16     wanted to take a shorter break and conclude early, but I think we'll have

17     most of a normal day.

18             JUDGE KWON:  This is my note, Mr. Tieger.  Do you have the page

19     number for the exhibit you referred to last, P1412?

20             MR. TIEGER:  [Microphone not activated]

21             JUDGE KWON:  Microphone.

22             MR. TIEGER:  Sorry.  I'll get that.  I have it but not in this

23     particular page.  I'll have it for you when we return.

24             JUDGE KWON:  [Microphone not activated] We'll resume at 1.30.

25                           --- Luncheon recess taken at 12.28 p.m.


Page 28702

 1                           --- On resuming at 1.30 p.m.

 2             JUDGE KWON:  Yes, Mr. Tieger.  Please continue.

 3             MR. TIEGER:  Thank you, Mr. President.

 4             Your Honours, as I indicated at the outset, I'd like to turn now

 5     to the book ends of the indictment, that's Counts 1 and 11, and first

 6     address this Defence submission with respect to Count 1.

 7             Those arguments, as will recall, were made by Mr. Robinson.  He

 8     asked you, for example, to take the word of the ICJ that there was no

 9     genocide; that is, take their word for it, not his, I think, was the

10     expression he used.  Now, apart from the fact that this may not be quite

11     sincere on its face, unless the accused wants you to take the ICJ's word

12     for the fact that Srebrenica was genocide, it is this Trial Chamber that

13     obviously has the responsibility to decide this case on the facts before

14     it.

15             Additionally, it may be worth noting that the factors cited by

16     the Defence in connection with its submissions regarding the ICJ are not

17     precisely apposite to this case; for example, he specifically cited the

18     ICJ's discussion about the strategic goals and that it did not come to

19     terms with the fact that an essential "motive" of much of the Bosnian

20     Serb leadership to create a larger Serbian state by war or conquest, if

21     necessary, did not necessarily require destruction of the Bosnian Muslim

22     and Bosnian Croat communities, but instead their expulsion.

23             Now, as you know from our submissions, while we agree with the

24     ICJ that the desire to create a Serbian state on the vast and ethnically

25     intermixed territories sought by Dr. Karadzic required the expulsion of


Page 28703

 1     Muslims and Croats, the fact that the motive to have a Serb state could

 2     have been achieved in ways other than with the intent to commit genocide

 3     is not relevant.  What is relevant is whether the dolus specialis existed

 4     irrespective of whether the underlying motive required it or, indeed,

 5     what that underlying motive was at all.

 6             Now the Defence also, in citing the figure of 2 per cent, asks

 7     you to play a numbers game and a numbers game that I think is a bit

 8     misleading as you will hear from other numbers that follow during the

 9     course of my submission with respect to particular municipalities; but

10     more importantly, this citation as it was offered disregards the

11     jurisprudence that makes clear that the size of the victimised population

12     is not determinative, nor should it be.  There's no minimum number of

13     victims as the Stakic case said, that's, I believe, para 522:

14             "It is not necessary to establish the size of the victimised

15     community -- victimised population in numerical terms.  It is the

16     genocidal dolus specialus that predominantly constitutes the crime."

17             And you can also look to the Trial Chamber in Semanza, which

18     said:

19             "There is no numeric threshold of victims necessary to establish

20     genocide."

21             The Defence also argues that displacement does not equal

22     destruction but ignores the -- in so doing, ignores jurisprudence that

23     displacement can contribute or be a part of the destruction or can be

24     evidence of genocidal intent.

25             And, finally, the Defence also cites the -- I shouldn't say


Page 28704

 1     finally, but the Defence also cites the Eichmann case, which shows,

 2     contrary to the Defence submission, that the existence of an intent to

 3     displace at one point in the process does not preclude genocidal intent

 4     at a later point.

 5             Now, the Defence also emphasised a number of earlier ICTY cases,

 6     including, Stakic, Brdjanin, Krajisnik, Milosevic, and Sikirica.  Now,

 7     the -- the Sikirica and Jelisic, of course, differ factually from the

 8     other cases in so far as they do not appear to involved even local

 9     leadership figures or significant evidence outside the local camp focus.

10             But, nevertheless, there was a discussion about Sikirica and an

11     attempt to distinguish or at least emphasise a point in Sikirica as -- as

12     being paralleled here.  And that's the argument that in Sikirica there

13     was no evidence that the killings were based on the targeting of the

14     leadership.  And the assertion was made well, that's -- that's the same

15     here, for example, and the specific example of Koricanske Stijene was

16     used.  Mr. Robinson noted the culling out of men who fell into category C

17     asserting that they were only combatants and that, therefore, evidence of

18     targeting of the leadership did not exist in this case as it did not in

19     Sikirica.  Well, in fact, that is a mischaracterisation of the evidence.

20     It is true that those -- that the evidence shows that those selected for

21     execution at Koricanske Stijene fell under the category C, but as we

22     heard in evidence, category C was not exclusively made up of combatants

23     but, instead, included people who unmistakably would be identified as

24     leadership figures, those who financed or gave more than simply verbal to

25     their party, that is in contrast to category B, and -- or were members of


Page 28705

 1     other extremist organisation and party members, and so on.  And that can

 2     be found, Your Honours, at P4257, pages T21119, and -- excuse me, 21119,

 3     and 21138 through 39, and I will return to the issue of leadership later.

 4             But the bottom line in the Defence submissions and one which

 5     they -- somewhat uncomfortably acknowledged but attempted to circumvent

 6     on the basis of reliance on a subsequent ICJ decision is that the

 7     Stakic Trial Chamber, the Brdjanin Trial Chamber, the Milosevic Trial

 8     Chamber, the Krajisnik Trial Chamber all concluded that, on the basis of

 9     the evidence before it, a reasonable Trial Chamber could, indeed,

10     determine that the accused was legally responsible for genocide.  Indeed,

11     Mr. Robinson cited the Stakic Appeals Judgement but it was that Judgement

12     which specifically noted that:

13             "Without question, the Trial Chamber made factual findings which

14     could, in principle, be taken as evidence that the Appellant intended to

15     destroy the Bosnian Muslim group in part."

16             And the Appellant Court found that on the basis of the evidence

17     before it -- it did not conclude that the Trial Chamber was obliged to do

18     so, but that it certainly could have done so.

19             What the Trial Chamber in -- did find and that the

20     Appeals Chamber alluded to was that:

21             "The evidence presents a comprehensive picture of targeted

22     killings, detentions, deportations and other violations of the basic

23     rights of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats in Prijedor, intended to

24     bring about the destruction of the group as such, in part.  The

25     Trial Chamber finds at this stage of the procedure that a reasonable


Page 28706

 1     trier of fact could, on the basis of the evidence adduced in this case,

 2     be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that genocide was committed in

 3     Prijedor municipality in 1992."

 4             That's paragraph 35.

 5             And that is the case in the evidence before this Trial Chamber

 6     but, indeed, there is much more bearing on this particular accused's

 7     dolus specialus; evidence that demonstrates that he shared the intent to

 8     destroy the Bosnian Muslim and/or Bosnian Croat groups in part and that

 9     he is therefore responsible for genocide under Count 1.

10             And let me recite just some of that evidence.

11             First of all, as we've seen repeatedly, and as I have eluded to

12     earlier, the accused insisted that an independent Bosnia would result in

13     the subjugation and genocide of the Bosnian Serbs by Muslims and Croats.

14     And in the face of that perceived existential threat, he intended to use

15     force that he knew and repeatedly claimed would physically destroy

16     Bosnian Muslims and Croats.  In the months leading up to the conflict, he

17     threatened that Bosnian independence would result in the destruction of

18     thousand of Muslims to the extent that the Muslim people would disappear.

19     And when the Muslims and Croats, when those authority -- when their

20     authorities did not yield to that threat but instead continued on the

21     path toward independence, the forces and organs under the authority of

22     the accused seized control of territories that he considered to be

23     ethnically or historically Serb or to be strategically important, killing

24     thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats and comitting other acts of

25     genocide against thousands more.  And these acts are exemplified in the


Page 28707

 1     municipalities listed in paragraph 38.

 2             The accused's statements both during and after the commission of

 3     these crimes demonstrate his approval and encouragement of these crimes

 4     as part of a process of "eliminating Bosnian Muslims and Croats."

 5             Now, I mentioned that the accused was obsessed with genocide and

 6     the Court will recall that the accused raised the World War II genocide

 7     of Serbs so frequently and routinely that Ambassador Okun actually noted

 8     down in his diary on one occasion when the accused had not mentioned it

 9     during the first three minutes of the conversation.  That's at T1490 and

10     P779, page 43.

11             And what Ambassador Okun appreciated at the time and what we came

12     to see in the evidence was that the boundaries of what the accused was

13     prepared to do to the Muslim and Croat communities was measured by the

14     existential threat he insisted they presented to Serbs.  As

15     Ambassador Okun said to the accused:

16             "If you keep talking about the genocide of the Serbs so much, you

17     will commit a pre-empted genocide."

18             That's at T4165 of P776.

19             And that -- that makes the obvious connection between the

20     accused's fixation with the past genocide committed against the Serbs and

21     his willingness to take actions as he deemed needed and appropriate under

22     those circumstances to ward off a renewed threat of genocide that he

23     believed the Bosnian Serbs faced.  And these were not views that he kept

24     to himself, as the pre-eminent leader of the Bosnian Serbs and supreme

25     commander of its forces, he promulgated those views and espoused them


Page 28708

 1     among his followers.  For example, he told the Assembly at its inaugural

 2     session on the 24th of October, 1991, that there was "nothing new" in the

 3     developments in Yugoslavia at the time:

 4              "We see the same uniforms, the same people who embraced fascist

 5     Germany back then, the same plans, the same villains and the same

 6     victims."

 7             That's D82, page 25.

 8             And similarly in January 1994 at a ceremonial session of the

 9     Assembly he declared:

10             "The wars of 1914, 1941 and 1991, were and remain above all wars

11     for the extermination of the Orthodox population," meaning the Serb

12     population, "there were a lot of nationally unaware Muslims, even Muslims

13     who in the ethnic sense declared themselves as Serbs, but they still

14     participated in the genocide against the Serbs led exclusively by

15     religious reasons."

16             Now, unhappily these were not abstract, philosophical

17     ruminations.  To the contrary, the accused insisted that Muslims and

18     Croats must not live with Serbs in order for Serbs to be safe and this

19     belief was the foundation of his overall military strategy.  So when he

20     announced the strategic objectives to the Assembly, he framed the first

21     objective, separation, as:

22             "Separation from those who are our enemies and who have used

23     every opportunity, especially in this century, to attack us and who would

24     continue with such practices if we were to stay together in the same

25     state."


Page 28709

 1             And he formulated and implemented military policies to achieve

 2     this.  That is from the 16th Session at P956, page 9.

 3             Long before the conflict broke out, the accused acknowledged that

 4     the destruction, the physical destruction, of Muslims and Croats would be

 5     a means to achieve his goals.  He repeatedly threatened the Bosnian

 6     Muslim and Croat groups with extinction if the circumstances, as he

 7     viewed them, required the use of force by the Bosnian Serbs.  And let me

 8     recite some of those.  On 9 September 1991 a conversation where he

 9     proposed saying to the Muslims, Man, you will disappear.  You will be

10     annihilate.  Many of us will disappear but you will be annihilate.

11     P3200, page 2.

12             On September 22nd, 1991, in discussing his negotiations with

13     Izetbegovic he said:

14             "Bosnia and the Muslims will disappear if there's a war."

15             That's P5975.

16             And in particular during the course of a long and contentious

17     assembly session -- joint assembly session in mid-October of 1991, the

18     accused repeatedly stated that the Bosnian Muslims would be physically

19     destroyed if they deigned to move forward in the manner that he

20     threatened would result in their destruction.

21             So on October 12th, 1991, he said to Gojko Djoko, quote -- the

22     Bosnian Muslim people "will disappear.  That people will disappear from

23     the face of the earth if they -- if they insist now."

24             That is D00279, pages 3 and then at pages 7 through 8.  He talks

25     about 300.00 Muslims dying up to their necks in blood.


Page 28710

 1             The accused actually raised this during the course of the case

 2     with Dr. Donia, explaining that he was giving the Muslims "several

 3     options."

 4             That's at T3497 through 3498.  But the final option that he

 5     articulated to Djogo 1991, should the Muslim continue to insist on

 6     independence, was their disappearance from the face of the earth.  As

 7     Donia said to him when the accused put that proposition about options to

 8     Donia:

 9             "You determine what is successful or what is acceptable for the

10     options they can pursue and if they choose to pursue other options or

11     don't comply with your conditions that there will be this war,

12     conflagration that will result in their disappearance."

13             And two more conversations of the same ilk from the same week to

14     another interlocutor in the same day, in P5959, the accused said:

15             "Therefore, the Muslims know what it is.  It is hell in which six

16     hundreds of thousands of them will disappear.  They will disappear."

17             And a few days later, as the Court is aware, he stood on the

18     podium at the joint assembly, wagged his finger at the Muslims and Croats

19     and told them that Bosnian independence would, quote, would entail,

20     quote:

21             "The same highway of hell and suffering" that Slovenia and

22     Croatia went through and result in the "possible extinction of the Muslim

23     people because," quote, "Muslim people will not be able to defend itself

24     if it comes to war here."

25             That's D267, pages 3 through 4.


Page 28711

 1             And as events marched on toward the independence of Bosnia, the

 2     accused continued to insist that physical destruction awaited those who

 3     sought it.  On the 31st of December, 1992, an interview was published

 4     with Izetbegovic in which he called for the establishment of a sovereign

 5     and independent Bosnia.  That is adjudicated fact 962.

 6             And the next day, the accused spoke about that with Mr. Krajisnik

 7     and he said:

 8             "Now he is talking openly of a sovereign and independent Bosnia.

 9     Does he want someone to destroy Sarajevo?  We will release our tigers and

10     let them do their job."

11             That is P5879, page 5.

12             And as we know from other evidence the accused was a very key

13     figure, in fact, the key figure in preparing the organs intended to

14     achieve these goals well aware of their destructive potential.  It was

15     the accused who personally selected General Mladic to lead the VRS -

16     that's P970, page 317 - and he tasked the VRS with implementing the goal

17     of physical separation through military force.

18             In selecting General Mladic, the accused chose a commander who

19     shared his belief that Serbs faced genocide and annihilation at the hands

20     of Muslims and Croats, and that forcible physical separation was

21     necessary to deal with this threat.

22             As Mladic said at the 16th Session, the Serbs were "creating an

23     army which will protect our children from the concurring ambitions of

24     Nazi mercenaries."

25             That's P956, page 45.


Page 28712

 1             And he underscored the difficulties that might be faced in

 2     reconfiguring Bosnia's demographic, stating both the difficulty in

 3     "shifting" people and people from here to there, and the unfavorable

 4     demographics in certain Serb claimed territories.  Again, P956, pages 36

 5     through 37.

 6             In the 1992 directives that were issued to and distributed among

 7     the Bosnian Serb forces, General Mladic disseminated the message that

 8     they were waging an ethnic war to protect Serbs from genocide.

 9             Here are just few an examples:  The VRS's task was to protect

10     Serbian populations from genocide and extermination.  That's D232; to

11     fight for the physical survival of the Serbs in this territory, D593;

12     P956, the fourth directive describes the conflict as a defensive war for

13     our freedom and against the genocide of the Serbian people; in D593,

14     Mladic characterised the Muslim side as a "fanatic adversary who will be

15     merciless to us and our people."  And so on.

16             Indeed, even after Mladic had led the VRS in forcibly and

17     dramatically altering Bosnia's demographics, reflection of which you saw

18     in the ethnic map I showed at the outset, Mladic continued to warn that

19     Serbs were still under threat from Muslims and Croats.  And emphasised

20     that the answer to the threat lay in their permanent elimination.  In

21     January 1994, he explained to the Assembly:

22             "This is our historical chance to create a state, not any kind of

23     state but an all Serbian state with as little enemies as possible, those

24     who could be our potential enemies and raise against us again in a few

25     years."


Page 28713

 1             And he warned about the Muslims and Croats who "are like this,

 2     represent a danger," and that the "enemy it determined to fight until the

 3     last one of us lives."

 4             In light of the threat posed, he stated:

 5             "My concern is not that they will create the state.  My concern

 6     is to have them vanish completely."

 7             That's P1385, pages 47 through 49.

 8             This was the man whom the accused entrusted to realise his vision

 9     of an ethnically homogenous Serbian state freed of its enemies for once

10     and for all.

11             Now, the accused also encouraged or authorised the elimination of

12     Muslims and Croats by the organs under his authority and control.  So,

13     for example, at the 17th Assembly Session in July 1992, and that at --

14     that's a period when the violence against Muslims and Croats was

15     particularly intense, when thousands of Muslims were dying in or being

16     killed in camps, such as Omarska, Keraterm, and Susica, after having been

17     rounded up from their homes, when many others had already been killed

18     or -- or fled in terrified fear.  The accused stated there was "truth" in

19     one assembly deputy statement that:

20             "The Muslims have been planted to us as a people whose

21     executioners we are to be."

22             That's found at D92, page 41.

23             And the accused then added:

24             "This conflict was roused in order to eliminate the Muslims.

25     They think that they are being nationally established, but, in fact, they


Page 28714

 1     are vanishing."

 2             Now, notwithstanding the sufferings caused by his policy, the

 3     accused continued to pursue his objective.  In June 1993, in a televised

 4     interview, he stated that:

 5             "The Muslims will have no excuse whatever for continuing the war.

 6     Muslim people should know that right now is the most favourable moment

 7     for them to save themselves from disappearance and to create their own

 8     space."

 9             And through such statements -- and these statements are coming

10     from the paramount, the pre-eminent leader of the Bosnian Serbs.  I

11     showed you in the opening a statement by an assembly deputy who said that

12     five lines of Dr. Karadzic were enough to change the whole session.  And

13     that came into evidence, as did the other assembly sessions.  These views

14     fostered a general atmosphere among all levels of Bosnian Serb leadership

15     which promoted the physical destruction of Bosnian Muslims and Croats.

16     This is illustrated by some comments that I'll note.

17             For example, at the 4th Assembly Session, there's a comment by at

18     regional leader, Mr. Vukic, that the European Community's recognition of

19     an independent Bosnia would result in:

20             "... another Serbian uprising, and there will be massive

21     bloodshed, in which some nations that have been subsequently created as

22     an illusion to the Muslims, will disappear all together."

23             A comment that was met with applause as reflected in the

24     transcript of the session.  That's D86, page 27.

25             At the 16th Assembly Session, the accused's minister of health,


Page 28715

 1     Dragan Kalinic stated:

 2             "Knowing who our enemy is, how perfidious they are, how they

 3     cannot be trusted until they are physically militarily destroyed and

 4     crushed which, of course, implies eliminating and liquidating their key

 5     people."

 6             And that harkens back to the issue about Koricanske Stijene and

 7     the categorising of local leaders for destruction.  I might also note

 8     that -- that can be found at P956, page 17.

 9             If you turn to page 19 of the same session, you'll see the same

10     speaker, Dr. Kalinic, urging the destruction of the Kosova hospital so

11     that the enemy will have nowhere to go for medical help.  That's the

12     minister of health.

13             And, in fact, key people among the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian

14     Croat groups were being eliminated and liquidated.  School teachers,

15     intellectuals, politicians, former police officers, and otherwise rich or

16     prominent people were specifically targeted for execution or especially

17     savage treatment.  For example, in Bratunac, that's KDZ605, P03205,

18     paragraphs 80 through 82.  Prijedor, KDZ206, KDZ523, KDZ4257.

19     Sanski Most, KDZ340, P3634, pages 108 through 109.  Vlasenica, KDZ044,

20     and P107, page 26.  Zvornik, KDZ029, P3195, paragraphs 22 through 24.

21             Other evidence of the systematic elimination of Muslims in the

22     manner evoked at these assembly sessions include evidence I alluded to

23     earlier regarding a "standard cleansing operation," which included the

24     instruction to kill any male Muslims encountered in the course of a

25     cleansing operation.


Page 28716

 1             Similarly, in a June 25th, 1992 intercepted conversation which

 2     the Court has received in evidence - that's P1515 - we see a local leader

 3     instructing a military figure who's calling from another part of the

 4     municipality to:

 5             "... have them all killed there, please.  All that is Muslim to

 6     be killed, like Alija.  I don't want to see one military-aged Muslim

 7     alive there."

 8             A few weeks before that conversation, the same person had told

 9     another military figure:

10             "I have a few years of schooling.  We shall disappear.  This is

11     the struggle for survival."

12             And he continued:  "You know what a struggle for survival means.

13     It's us or them."

14             And his interlocutor said:  "Exactly."

15             And he continued:  "Then we have to move dynamically in certain

16     territories."

17             To which the response was:  "That's clear.  That's clear."

18             D1210.  And, again, we see the linkage between the perception and

19     fixation on being genocidal victims with the response in kind.

20             Now, as I have noted, the accused did not solely promote the

21     destruction of Muslims and Croats through speeches but matched his words

22     with actions.  He -- as I noted, he selected Mladic, who shared his view,

23     and tasked him with leading that effort.  He also relied on notoriously

24     violent figures, such as Arkan, whom Ambassador Okun described as a

25     leader of a particularly vicious paramilitary group and who the Court has


Page 28717

 1     heard about during the course of the case, including the approval of the

 2     invitation for him to appear from the Bosnian Serb leadership, including

 3     the approbation by Dr. Karadzic, and you saw that at P02848, pages 24

 4     through 25.

 5             These -- such figures as Arkan and other paramilitaries were

 6     supported by and incorporated into the Bosnian Serb forces, at least

 7     until such time as their role in the subjugation and cleansing of Muslims

 8     had been largely completed and their criminal propensities began to turn

 9     back against the Serbian population.  But their -- the recognition of

10     them as genocidal was made explicit in a 28 July 1992 report by

11     Colonel Tolimir:

12             "Many formations of this type display hatred of non-Serbian

13     peoples, and one can conclude without reservations that they are a

14     genocidal element among the Serbian people."

15             That's P2855.  A further reflection of the intent of the accused

16     in unleashing these forces for particular purposes.

17             And, indeed, as this campaign unfolded, the accused ensured that

18     the mechanisms of the Republika Srpska state structure that were

19     nominally intended for law enforcement were not deployed to derail this

20     genocidal effort.  In the face of the mass violent crimes against

21     non-Serbs, you've heard evidence that the accused not only chose not to

22     have them prosecuted but to suppress any efforts to the contrary.  And I

23     turn your attention to P3773 and the conclusion that -- and the evidence

24     that -- of the interference with the structures that would otherwise have

25     been addressing such matters in pursuit or furtherance of the policy of


Page 28718

 1     an ethnically cleansed state.  And the accused praised and rewarded those

 2     who perpetrated and promoted the commission of the underlying genocidal

 3     acts.

 4             And if you turn to P5525, the January 1994 ceremonial session of

 5     the RS Assembly, you'll see that after reiterating - again - the alleged

 6     genocidal threat posed by the "toxic all-destructive Islamic octopus," he

 7     praised the SDS, the Bosnian Serb MUP, parts of the JNA, the TO, and the

 8     VRS for "standing against our united enemies in a manner admired even

 9     today" and bestowed awards on a number of individuals whose names have

10     appeared in the course of our evidence repeatedly, rewarded them for

11     their role in implementing and overseeing acts addressing the Muslim and

12     Croat population.  And in those cases,  implementing and overseeing the

13     physical destruction of Muslims and Croats in Serb-held areas.

14             Now, the Defence has argued, in part, that the evidence at its

15     highest shows an intent to displace rather than destroy.  And it is

16     certainly theatrically possible to be faced with that stark contrast in

17     various circumstances.  But here, in this case, the evidence shows that

18     thousands and thousands of non-Serbs were targeted for physical

19     destruction, not for expulsion.  Incident after incident in which a

20     deliberate decision was made to physically destroy members of the Bosnian

21     Muslim and Bosnian Croat groups rather than expel them or allow them to

22     flee in fear from Bosnian Serb territories.  Now, we saw that in

23     municipality after municipality, but I want to just address two of those

24     municipalities.

25             First of all, in Zvornik.  And it's -- in so doing, I'm


Page 28719

 1     overlooking numerous massacres of hundreds of people at -- at -- not

 2     collectively but in -- in individual incidents.  But I -- I -- I want to

 3     focus on two municipalities because I think they illustrate the point.

 4             So, in Zvornik, we see, among other things, the following.  On

 5     April 9th, in the course of a takeover at Zvornik, 30 Muslims were found

 6     sheltered in a basement.  The men were taken away and executed; the women

 7     and children herded onto buses and expelled to Serbia.  That is KDZ023

 8     92 bis, P65, P89, P92.

 9             At the beginning of June, several thousand Muslims from various

10     villages were herded to the Bijeli Potok area.  Approximately 750 men

11     were separated from the women and children; the women and children placed

12     on a buses and expelled.  The men detained at Karakaj technical school

13     where approximately 160 were killed and approximately 190 more were taken

14     to Gero's slaughter-house and executed there.  That's adjudicated fact

15     2744 to 756, KDZ029, and the testimony of Petko Panic.  More generally,

16     with respect to Gero's slaughter-house, it operated openly as an

17     execution site and a collection point for hundreds of bodies of killed

18     Muslims.  And that's found at -- that's KDZ610, P4837, paragraphs 34

19     through 41, P3880, page 2902, and transcript 19142, and P3192.

20             On 30th of May, soldiers rounded up approximately 150 Muslims

21     from the Kosta Jevero [phoen] area, detained them at Drnjaca.  Women and

22     children were taken away, placed on buses and expelled to Bosnian Muslim

23     territory.  Men were taken to Dom culture in groups of ten and executed.

24     Leaving the bodies of at least 88 piled up at the Drnjaca school

25     playground.  That's KDZ072, KDZ610, P4837, paragraphs 54 through 57.


Page 28720

 1             And the evidence shows that it approximately 2.000 Bosnian Muslim

 2     civilians were killed in Zvornik pursuant to an organised system that

 3     included not just mass executions but also the systematic transportation,

 4     collection and burial of bodies and cleaning of crime sites supervised by

 5     the Zvornik municipality authorities.  That's KDZ610.

 6             That's on one side, on the eastern side.

 7             Let's turn to the north-west part of Bosnia and of RS territory,

 8     and that's in Prijedor, and let me recite some of what happened there.

 9             On July 23rd, killing of at least 16 civilians during an attack.

10     That's adjudicated fact 1067, 1071, KDZ092, P702 through 703, KDZ014, and

11     so on.  And in July 1992, Bosnian Serb military and police forces

12     conducted an attack on the Brdo area, which included villages such as

13     Biscani and hamlets of Hegici, Markale, and so on.  Bosnian Muslim

14     population was ordered by the Bosnian Serb forces to gather at various

15     collection pints.  At one location, five unarmed men were executed by

16     Bosnian Serb soldiers.  30 to 40 Bosnian Muslim residents of Markale were

17     executed the same day.  12 persons executed in a field in Hegici by

18     Bosnian Serb forces.  20 at a bus-stop between Alagici and Srmernica

19     [phoen].  Following that assault on the Brdo area, Bosnian Muslim men

20     were forced to collect bodies under the supervision of the VRS and

21     between 300 and 350 bodies were loaded onto trucks.  Almost all Bosnian

22     Muslims and some Bosnian Croats.  That's adjudicated fact 1071, 1077.

23     KDZ094, P706, KDZ523, P4257, KDZ094.

24             Following the attack on the Brdo, approximately 200 residents of

25     the area were taken to Keraterm and detained in room 3.  And a few days


Page 28721

 1     later, Bosnian Serb military personnel massacred at least 150 of these

 2     detainees with light and heavy weapons.  And a fire engine was brought in

 3     to clean it up and remove traces of the massacre.  That's adjudicated

 4     fact 1215 through 1219, KDZ367, P693, KDZ092.

 5             Around the same time, another large group from the Brdo area were

 6     taken to Omarska.  At least 150 people were killed shortly after their

 7     arrival.  Adjudicated fact 1185, 1191, KDZ048, P677 through 78, KDZ093.

 8             And around July 25th, a large number of Bosnian Muslim civilians

 9     detained at Ljubija, a minimum of 15 detainees executed there.  Another

10     50 put on a bus taken to a nearby mine and executed by Bosnian Serb

11     soldiers.  Two managed to escape.  Adjudicated facts 1186 through 1188,

12     KDZ080, P3691, KDZ026 and 392, P2089 and P707.

13             At Omarska, killings were routine.  KDZ080 described counting

14     dead bodies around the white house every morning.  Numerous detainees

15     were taken away and executed.  For example, around late July, a group of

16     44 detainees were taken out, put on a bus, and killed.  See --

17     adjudicated fact 1186, 1188, KDZ080, P3691, KDZ026, P2089, KDZ392, P707.

18             An incident that Mr. Robinson referred to on Monday, around

19     21 August, approximately 200 men were taken away from Trnopolje and the

20     surrounding area on buses in a larger convoy, and at Koricanske Stijene,

21     the men were taken to the edge of a cliff and executed in groups.  Dumped

22     in the ravine.  Later, there was an attempt to remove the bodies and

23     cover up that crime.  That's adjudicated fact 1243 through 1256, 2490,

24     through 2492, KDZ523, KDZ038, Krajic and Komljenovic.

25             And if you turn to P1483, a meeting of 27 May 1993 reflected in


Page 28722

 1     the Mladic diary, you'll see a reference to a discussion between one of

 2     the attendees at that meeting and the chief of the -- the former chief of

 3     police from Prijedor about concerns about what to do with the bodies of

 4     Muslims who had been buried in Tomasica mine.  5.000 Muslims.  And the

 5     concern was they wanted to get rid of those bodies by burning, grinding

 6     or in some other way, and now General Subotic was involved, and they

 7     wanted to know what Mladic thought might be best by way of handling it.

 8             Your Honours, it is the dolus specialus that -- accompanied by

 9     the actus reus, the many, many acts, some of which I have enumerated, as

10     we've discussed, that convergence that governs.  There is ample evidence

11     in this case upon which a reasonable Trial Chamber could conclude that

12     the dolus specialus for destruction of the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian

13     Croat groups, in whole or in part, existed.

14             Finally, Your Honour, I'd like to turn to Count 11.

15             During the course of their submissions, the Defence focussed a

16     great deal on the issue of whether or not the UN personnel who were taken

17     hostage were combatants or not.  This is legally irrelevant.  The Appeals

18     Chamber has ruled that the prohibition against taking hostages in Common

19     Article 3 embraces any person taking no active part in the hostilities,

20     including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those

21     placed hors de combat.  That's a decision of 9 July 2009 at paragraphs 22

22     and 26 through 27.

23             Even assuming that the accused reasonably believed that the

24     detained UN members had combatant status, this could, at most, justify

25     their detention as POWs with all the protections that would entail and


Page 28723

 1     could never justify their treatment as hostages which, in this case,

 2     included detaining them at strategic locations in order to render the

 3     locations immune from air-strikes, threatening NATO and UN commanders

 4     that further air-strikes would result in their injury, death, or

 5     continued detention and their physical mistreatment.

 6             Now, the Defence appear to argue that the crime of hostage-taking

 7     can only apply to a combatant if he is already detained with the intent

 8     to -- it is already detained when the intent to use him as a hostage

 9     arises.  So, therefore, the argument seems to go, if the detained UN

10     personnel in this case had combatant status, because the evidence in this

11     case shows that their detention was directly linked to the threats to

12     their lives and safety and was for the purpose of stopping the

13     air-strikes, that this can't constitute the crime of hostage-taking.  In

14     other words, the Defence is essentially arguing that because these

15     personnel were detained for the very purpose of holding them hostage,

16     they cannot be considered to be victims of hostage-taking.

17             Not only is this interpretation [indiscernible] absurd, but it

18     finds no support in the relevant provisions of international humanitarian

19     law.  This interpretation hinges on the claim that a combatant taken

20     hostage in this manner is not a protected hors de combat -- a protected

21     combatant hors de combat.  But the basic provisions of IHL define

22     hors de combat in broad terms, and the key point is that the combatant

23     has fallen into enemy hands and is in longer in a position to defend

24     himself.

25             So cite, for example, 1907 Hague Regulations, Article 23(C),


Page 28724

 1     which is implicit in the third convention as noted by the ICTR commentary

 2     to Protocol I, Article 41, and Additional Protocol I, as I said,

 3     Article 41.  These provisions clearly classify as hors de combat a

 4     combatant taken hostage by the enemy.  I think the Defence implicitly

 5     recognises that, because they turn instead to an argument based

 6     principally on the ICC elements of the crime of hostage-taking, and you

 7     recall that at transcript pages 28619 through 28620 and 28624, and the

 8     accused's claim is that prior detention must be a required element

 9     because otherwise the fourth and fifth elements of the ICC elements -

10     that is, that the person is a protected person - and that the perpetrator

11     is aware of the factual circumstances establishing that status would be

12     redundant.  Well, that is misleading.  Because, even assuming that the

13     ICC elements have some relevance here, the -- the -- the elements of

14     hostage-taking under the ICC Statute that Mr. Robinson relies upon are

15     the elements under Article 8(2)(a)(viii) and this Article criminalizes

16     hostage-taking as a grave breach of the 1994 Geneva Conventions.  The

17     accused in this case, however, is not charged with hostage-taking as a

18     grave breach under Article 2 of the Statute but, rather, with

19     hostage-taking as a war crime under Article 3.

20             So if the ICC elements are considered to have any relevance at

21     all, then the elements of Article 8(2)(c)(iii) are the appropriate basis

22     of comparison.  And the status requirement under that article is that the

23     person or persons seized, detained or otherwise taken hostage:

24             "... were either hors de combat or were civilians, medical

25     personnel, or religious personnel taking no part -- no active part in the


Page 28725

 1     hostilities."

 2             This requirement, Your Honours, is similar to the status

 3     requirement set out by the Appeals Chamber in this case.  And drawing on

 4     the text of Common Article 3, the Appeals Chamber held that the

 5     prohibition of hostage-taking extends to any person taking no active part

 6     in hostilities, including members of the armed forces who have laid their

 7     arms and those placed hors de combat.  And, again, we find that on the

 8     pre-trial decision, 28 April 2009, paragraph 65.

 9             So, if anything, the fact that ICC law also included those placed

10     hors de combat as among the potential victims of a hostage-taking simply

11     confirms our Appeals Chamber's holding that the status of detained UN

12     members is irrelevant.

13             Now, there's also a suggestion that prior ICTY jurisprudence

14     supports that interpretation of the crime of hostage-taking, that the

15     person must be -- the detained person must be hors de combat before the

16     intention to use him or her as a hostage is formed, but while it is true

17     that that the Blaskic and Kordic case dealt with individuals who were

18     already in detention for some time, nothing in the Chamber's decisions

19     and findings in those cases suggest in any way that prior detention was a

20     requirement -- required element of the crime, and the decision, the

21     pre-trial decision in this case and the Appeals Chamber decision,

22     indicate quite the contrary.

23             Finally, Mr. Robinson points to statements in the record by the

24     accused referring to the detained UN personnel as prisoners of war in

25     order to argue that the elements of the crime haven't been met and makes


Page 28726

 1     that citation at 28625.  But it's -- it's difficult to reconcile his

 2     reliance on the accused's reference to the detained UN personnel as

 3     prisoners of war - that is, combatants who were hors de combat - with his

 4     argument that these detainees were not combatants hors de combat.  But,

 5     in any event, whatever the accused believed at the time about the status

 6     of the detained UN members - and, again, I emphasise that has no legal

 7     relevance here - the evidence is clear that the accused and Mladic and

 8     other senior political and military Bosnian Serb leaders did not intend

 9     merely to detain them as POWs but, in fact, intended to use their

10     detention in order to "gain an advantage or obtain a concession."

11             And, again, that's the -- that harkens back to the elements in

12     question as confirmed by prior decisions in this institution, including

13     the decision of 28 April 2009.

14             Intended to use their detention in order to gain an advantage or

15     obtain a concession, just a few examples.  In a June 21, 1992 videotaped

16     BBC interview - that's P5026 - the accused was asked whether it was:

17             "... a terrible mistake to have allowed your people to have

18     captured UN soldiers, for the world to have seen them chained them, to

19     have seen masked men holding guns at their heads.  That was a terrible

20     thing, wasn't it?  Wasn't that an awful mistake?"

21             And the accused responded:

22             "Right.  One mistake causes another mistake.  One drastic move

23     causes another drastic reaction.  You have to realise that that was a

24     reaction, not action, and we felt hopeless and helpless, and we had to do

25     something very drastic in order to prevent further attacks and in order


Page 28727

 1     to show to the international community that we are cornered and that we,

 2     being cornered, are ready to defend ourselves by all means."

 3             Difficult to imagine a clearer acknowledgement, the elements of

 4     hostage-taking.

 5             Another example occurred at the 51st Assembly Session held on

 6     15 through 16 June 1995 when the accused, referring to the hostages,

 7     stated that they were holding onto 15 of them until the end of the week

 8     in order to gain the advantage of keeping weapons in Sarajevo.

 9             And here's the quote:

10             "We couldn't let them go all at once but in proportions.  We even

11     left 15 until the end of this week so we could keep the weapons we have

12     in Sarajevo, knowing about the offensive and planning to do something in

13     Sarajevo.  Now any return of weapons is out of the question because of

14     this offensive, so that, in a way, we even somewhat benefitted from this

15     whole crisis."

16             That's P1410, page 332.

17             Just before this particular assembly session, the accused had

18     ordered precisely that.  In a 13 June 1995 order to the Main Staff,

19     Main Staff commander and assistant commander for intelligence and

20     security, the accused ordered the release of all captured UN soldiers at

21     1100 hours on 13 June 1995 except for:

22             "... 15 military observers who shall remain in custody and

23     prepare them for release scheduled to take place on June -- on Sunday, 18

24     June 1995, in the same manner as before."

25             That's at P2156.


Page 28728

 1             And in a slightly more colloquial explanation of the purpose

 2     behind the seizure and continued detention of these UN personnel, you can

 3     turn to P2271, a conversation between Momcilo Krajisnik and

 4     Momcilo Vinkovic on the 3rd of June, 1995.  And here's what Mr. Krajisnik

 5     had to say about that -- so first, Vinkovic said to Krajisnik:

 6             "But, look, hold onto the hostages.  That's a fantastic card.

 7     Don't ever forget that Saddam got destroyed when he released the

 8     hostages."

 9             And Krajisnik responded:  "Yes, yes, we're doing that.  We have

10     an excellent method.  We always have an ace up our sleeve."

11             Mr. President, Your Honours, the evidence, including the evidence

12     directly from those -- a number of those persons who were taken hostage,

13     reveal quite clearly the -- that the nature -- the nature of their

14     detention, that the elements of hostage-taking were met, and frankly the

15     absurdity of an argument that one can't be guilty of -- responsible for

16     hostage-taking because he has the intent to take them hostage.

17             Mr. President, Your Honour, I'm grateful for the time to respond

18     to the submissions made by the Defence.

19             I still need to clarify one question you asked me before the

20     session ended previously.  With respect to P1412, that is, the

21     52nd Assembly I referred to, the quote that I referred to can be found at

22     pages 23 through 24.

23             Mr. President, Your Honours, that concludes the Prosecution's

24     submissions.

25             Thank you for attention.


Page 28729

 1             JUDGE KWON:  Thank you.

 2                           [Trial Chamber confers]

 3             JUDGE KWON:  Thank you.  The Chamber has heard the Rule 98 bis

 4     submission from the Defence, as well as the response from the

 5     Prosecution.

 6             The Chamber will announce its ruling on Thursday, 28th of June,

 7     at 11.00 in this courtroom.

 8             Before we adjourn, there's a matter to briefly deal with in

 9     private session.

10             Could the Chamber move into private session?

11                           [Private session]

12   (redacted)

13   (redacted)

14   (redacted)

15   (redacted)

16   (redacted)

17   (redacted)

18   (redacted)

19   (redacted)

20   (redacted)

21   (redacted)

22   (redacted)

23                           [Open session]

24             JUDGE KWON:  Yes, hearing is now adjourned.

25                            --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.38 p.m.,


Page 28730

 1                           to be reconvened on Thursday, the 28th day of June,

 2                           2012, at 11.00 a.m.

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