1 Thursday, May 13th 1999

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2 (Closed session)

3 (The accused entered court)

4 (The witness entered court)

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1 --- On resuming at 2.30 p.m.

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25 (Open session)

1 JUDGE MAY: And while we are waiting for the

2 witness -- we have read the report. Is there anything

3 you want to add by way of direct examination?

4 MR. SCOTT: What I have done, Your Honour, in

5 one of the documents that is on its way, it's not

6 really like the document with the former witness, I

7 have created an outline of essentially -- some people

8 would say "bullet points" about his report. And what I

9 intended to do was, after explaining how he came to be

10 involved in this project, the methodology employed in

11 preparing his report, to put this list of bullet points

12 on the ELMO and simply give him the opportunity to

13 amplify the basis for his various conclusions without

14 going through the report itself in any detail. So I

15 would hope that we can do it -- my goal is to do it

16 expeditiously.

17 JUDGE MAY: And this afternoon?

18 MR. SCOTT: Yes.

19 JUDGE MAY: By 4.15?

20 MR. SCOTT: That may be a bit of a tall

21 order, Your Honour, but I'll try very hard. Less than

22 an hour.

23 JUDGE BENNOUNA: (Interpretation) Mr. Scott, I

24 think that the report is an historical report which

25 goes far beyond the case that we are dealing with here,

1 and as far as possible, one should avoid going into

2 history in general. I don't think that would be very

3 useful. But we should, rather, focus on the points

4 related to the counts of the indictment --

5 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour.

6 JUDGE BENNOUNA: (Interpretation) --

7 particularly regarding general facts. We all have the

8 ability to study them ourselves. Thank you.

9 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour. The report

10 itself is obviously heavily focused on -- not entirely

11 but heavily focused on the events in Ahmici, but I

12 understand the Court's guidance, and I apologise for

13 the delay, Your Honour. Apparently we had some

14 miscommunication.

15 JUDGE MAY: Can we start with the witness and

16 the background matters? Is there any reason why we

17 shouldn't start with that?

18 MR. SCOTT: I think we could, Your Honour.

19 JUDGE MAY: To save time.

20 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour. We can do

21 that. Mr. McLeod?

22 (The witness entered court)

23 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will

24 speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the

25 truth.

1 WITNESS: CHARLES McLEOD

2 Examined by Mr. Scott:

3 Q. Mr. McLeod, directing your attention to your

4 background prior to becoming involved with the report

5 that you did in 1993 concerning events in Central

6 Bosnia, briefly by way of background, can you tell the

7 Court, is it correct that you were a member of the

8 British military, that is, the army, for approximately

9 a ten-year period?

10 A. That is correct.

11 Q. During that time, what ranks did you hold?

12 A. I joined as a private soldier, I was

13 commissioned as a second lieutenant and promoted

14 eventually to the rank of captain.

15 Q. Can you tell the Court some of the various

16 tours of duty that you were involved in as they related

17 to, in particular, postings to other foreign countries?

18 A. Certainly. I was initially posted to West

19 Germany, as it then was; while I was there, I did a

20 tour of West Belfast, which is not a foreign country

21 but an interesting place; served in Belize and was also

22 posted back into Northern Ireland for a two-year tour

23 having completed my studies at university.

24 Q. Did you, as a result of your service up to

25 the point of your -- was it your second tour then in

1 Northern Ireland?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. And were you awarded a medal or a ranking --

4 I'm not sure of the right word, and forgive me -- the

5 honour of being a Member of the Order of the British

6 Empire?

7 A. That is correct.

8 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness please

9 use the other microphone because the interpreters

10 cannot hear him?

11 MR. SCOTT: Do we need to go back to

12 anything? I'm sorry. If I can just ask the

13 interpreters or ...

14 THE INTERPRETER: There is no need to go

15 back, but a pause between question and answer would be

16 greatly appreciated.

17 MR. SCOTT: Thank you very much.

18 Q. Did you leave the British army in

19 approximately 1992?

20 A. Yes, I did.

21 Q. Did you then become employed with something

22 called the European Community Monitoring Mission?

23 A. Yes. I spent one year working for the ECMM

24 employed by the British Foreign Office. I was doing

25 two-month tours in Yugoslavia.

1 Q. And you did six two-month tours for a total

2 of one year?

3 A. That is correct.

4 Q. I'm not sure in this particular trial,

5 Mr. McLeod, whether the ECMM has come up, or if it has,

6 probably not very extensively, and it will come up more

7 in the future, Your Honour.

8 Can you tell the Court what was the ECMM and

9 what the function was in the former Yugoslavia?

10 A. Certainly. The ECMM was established when the

11 war in Yugoslavia first broke out in Slovenia. It was

12 an international monitoring mission, initially just

13 diplomats and then a mixture of diplomats and either

14 serving or retired soldiers, and the basic pattern of

15 operations was two-man teams with a driver and an

16 interpreter would go and try and get a team on both

17 sides of each of the confrontation lines, talk to the

18 military and political leaders on both sides, and

19 suggest initially that they should stop shooting at

20 each other and then that they should try and establish

21 various --

22 THE INTERPRETER: Will you also please slow

23 the witness down?

24 THE WITNESS: I apologise.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: What were the countries

1 involved in its establishment?

2 A. The basic countries were the European

3 Community countries, and in addition, there were also a

4 number of countries from what was then the Conference

5 on Security and Cooperation in Europe, CSC, now the

6 OSCE, so basically European countries plus Canada and

7 Norway and Czechoslovakia, as it then was, and Poland.

8 So quite a diverse mixture.

9 MR. SCOTT:

10 Q. Where were you posted initially on joining,

11 becoming involved with the ECMM?

12 A. Initially I was working in Zagreb within

13 Croatia working on both sides of the internal contact

14 line between Croatian forces and Serb forces in

15 Croatia. I was then based in the headquarters of ECMM

16 in Zagreb in the humanitarian section. As a member of

17 that group, I was involved in missions to northern

18 Bosnia trying to re-establish a presence in northern

19 Bosnia.

20 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, if I could? It will

21 ultimately make this quicker, I believe, if we now can

22 distribute two documents, please? They are marked for

23 identification purposes as Exhibits 2694.1 and 858.1.

24 Your Honour, I think we can proceed. For the

25 record, Your Honour, to guide the testimony, simply as

1 an aid is what has been marked for identification as

2 2694.1. I do not intend to go back over the items we

3 have already touched on which are discussed in the

4 first several paragraphs of the first page, and I think

5 we're down to the point where Mr. McLeod was appointed

6 to the European Community Commission -- excuse me,

7 European Community Monitoring Mission in July 1992.

8 JUDGE MAY: Well, Mr. Scott, we can read the

9 rest of this document.

10 MR. SCOTT: I understand, Your Honour.

11 Exactly. That's why I prepared it. I thought it would

12 be quicker than going through it in great detail by

13 testimony.

14 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Thank you. Let us just

15 read the rest of it.

16 MR. SCOTT: Shall I continue, Your Honour?

17 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

18 MR. SCOTT: Thank you.

19 Q. Suffice it to say then, Mr. McLeod, that by

20 the time you received an assignment as related to

21 certain events in Central Bosnia in April 1993, you had

22 been carrying out various functions and

23 responsibilities in the former Yugoslavia for

24 approximately nine months; is that correct?

25 A. That is correct.

1 Q. Not only with any particular ethnic group but

2 virtually you had been involved, in fact, with

3 essentially, at one time or another, all the ethnic

4 groups; is that fair to say?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Can you then, please, now explain to the

7 Court, how did you become to be assigned or involved in

8 a mission, an ECMM mission, to Vitez in May of 1993?

9 A. Certainly. After the events which had taken

10 place in Vitez in April, a couple of things happened.

11 The head of the regional centre in Zenica, a French

12 ambassador, Jean-Pierre Thebault, came up to the

13 headquarters to ask for resources for somebody to go

14 down and help his humanitarian rep. to try and

15 establish what had happened because everybody was very

16 interested, and also a gentleman called Thomas Osorio,

17 who is a human rights investigator, came to the ECMM at

18 the same time and said that, quite clearly, the events

19 that had taken place were of interest and it would be

20 worth us as a group, the ECMM, trying to find out and

21 establish impartially what had happened. So as these

22 two events came together, it was suggested that I, as

23 somebody who was in the humanitarian team in the

24 headquarters, should be sent down to Zenica to work

25 with the monitors already on the ground there to try

1 and establish what had happened fairly rapidly and to

2 write a report.

3 Q. All right. And perhaps, for the record, it

4 is a bit less cryptic, we've all been saying you were

5 sent to Vitez because of "certain events" in April of

6 1993. Can you just -- what were those events, in a

7 very short order, that caused the need for this mission

8 to be recognised and carried out?

9 A. There had been a period of tension between

10 the Muslim and Croat sides in Central Bosnia, and this

11 had appeared to erupt into violence in the Lasva Valley

12 with a period of quite heavy fighting between the two

13 parties, and in the aftermath of that fighting, it was

14 clear that a number of things had happened, including

15 the events at Ahmici, which is a village which appeared

16 to be largely burnt. This was being quite heavily

17 reported at the time.

18 Q. All right. Did you, in fact, then go to the

19 Vitez area in early May 1993?

20 A. Yes. I travelled down on the 3rd of May,

21 spent the next several days in the area, and travelled

22 back up to Zagreb on the 12th and 13th of May.

23 Q. Can you tell the Court whether -- when you

24 went to Vitez on this mission, did you have any

25 preconceived notions or tentative conclusions that you

1 thought you would reach?

2 A. It seemed -- it seemed quite clear that

3 something had gone badly wrong. It was quite clear

4 that there had been quite a lot of fighting going on.

5 I was interested to try and talk to people on both

6 sides of the confrontation at a number of different

7 levels to ask them to tell me in their own words what

8 had happened. As far as possible, I just wanted to get

9 them to tell me what had happened so I could then draw

10 some conclusions afterwards rather than accepting

11 whatever the messages that seemed to be coming out of

12 the media already.

13 Q. Do you believe, Mr. McLeod, that you

14 approached this work with an open mind?

15 A. That was certainly my intention, yes.

16 Q. Now, before we get into the substance of your

17 report, had you seen what came to be called and what we

18 now refer to as "ethnic cleansing," had you seen events

19 that were described or known to you as "ethnic

20 cleansing" before going to Vitez in April -- excuse me,

21 in May 1993?

22 A. Yes. I had seen two separate sets of

23 examples. I had seen the ethnic cleansing of Croats by

24 the Serbs in the area of Croatia known as Krajina; that

25 was those parts of Croatia that were controlled by

1 Serbs. I had also seen ethnic cleansing of mostly

2 Muslims but also Croats by the Serbs in northern

3 Bosnia. So that the basic pattern was by then fairly

4 familiar.

5 Q. Can you tell the Court, what are some of the

6 indications or hallmarks of ethnic cleansing to you as

7 a professional observer, a trained military man, and a

8 professional observer? What would come -- when you see

9 a village or a set of houses, what tells you that it

10 may have involved ethnic cleansing?

11 MR. SAYERS: I just object to this testimony

12 on the ground that that calls for sort of an expert

13 opinion, Your Honour, and this gentleman hasn't been

14 identified as an expert, I don't think he is an

15 expert. The requirements for expert testimony are very

16 clearly outlined in the Tribunal's Rules of Procedure

17 and Evidence in Rule 94 bis, and they haven't been

18 complied with here.

19 JUDGE MAY: Well, I'm not sure that this is a

20 helpful question.

21 MR. SCOTT: Very well, Your Honour.

22 JUDGE MAY: In due course, it can be dealt

23 with. But, Mr. Sayers, there will come a time, no

24 doubt, when this witness will be asked his opinion as a

25 soldier, as a former soldier with ten years' experience

1 behind him. Now, he is entitled to give that because

2 of his training. But whether it's useful to go into

3 these sort of things, I rather doubt. Can we move on,

4 Mr. Scott?

5 Could you bear in mind, please, not to go too

6 quickly? I know you're trying to get through the

7 evidence.

8 MR. SCOTT: I am, Your Honour. I apologise.

9 I'm trying to do, I guess, many things at once, and I

10 apologise.

11 JUDGE MAY: Remember, we have this report and

12 we've read the report, so the number of questions that

13 we need in direct examination is limited. Bear in mind

14 too that this witness has come to give his evidence,

15 and it would be very inconvenient and a public expense

16 if he has to come back to be cross-examined.

17 Yes, let's go on.

18 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour.

19 Q. Let me direct your attention then to what's

20 been marked as Exhibit 858.1, which has been previously

21 distributed.

22 For the Court and counsel, it is the

23 two-column one-page chart, if you will.

24 With that in front of you and recognising

25 that the other parties -- the Court and other parties

1 to these proceedings have a copy of this document, just

2 tell briefly then what was the methodology or what did

3 you do on arriving in the Vitez area in May of 1993?

4 A. The first thing that I did was talk to our

5 own people on the ground and to UNPROFOR, particularly

6 BritBat, to try and work out -- I gathered together all

7 of the reports that had been written by UNPROFOR and

8 ourselves, collated those, and tried to work out, from

9 our reporting, what we thought had happened. Then I

10 spoke to -- as you can see here -- a list of the people

11 I met and talked to, a range of people on both sides,

12 political, military, and religious, and asked them each

13 to explain to me in their own words what they thought

14 had happened leading up to the 16th of April and then

15 immediately thereafter.

16 On most occasions what I was trying to get

17 them to do was to tell me what had happened and then to

18 describe, with reference to a photocopied map so that

19 they could identify various places on the ground, what

20 had happened, and it was the basis of the conversations

21 that I had had which I wrote down in my notebook which

22 I then typed up and formed the basis of the report that

23 I wrote.

24 Q. Looking at 858.1, can you just confirm that,

25 in fact, you did each of these things, most of them are

1 interviews but there are also some visits to particular

2 locations, that you did all these things on or about

3 the dates indicated in the right column?

4 A. That is correct.

5 Q. Did you, as indicated on the chart, in fact,

6 visit Ahmici, the village of Ahmici, on the 4th of May,

7 1993?

8 A. Yes, I did.

9 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, at this time we

10 would like to show a short video clip of an inspection

11 of Ahmici at the time that Mr. McLeod was involved in

12 that, which is marked as 1576.

13 (Videotape played)

14 MR. SCOTT:

15 Q. Mr. McLeod, in the interests of time, I

16 didn't stop the clip, but there was a portion of a

17 meeting that was -- a portion showing a meeting in the

18 room, and you were shown in that clip; is that correct?

19 A. That's correct, yes.

20 Q. And you were along on that inspection that

21 day?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. Now, did you, in fact, prepare a written

24 report of your findings, which is obvious at this

25 point, but for the record, did you do so?

1 A. Yes, I did.

2 MR. SCOTT: If the witness could be shown

3 what's been marked as Exhibit 926, which I think

4 virtually everyone has at this point in one form or

5 another.

6 While that's been done, Your Honour, I just

7 observe, in response to Mr. Sayers, that this report,

8 in fact, has been distributed and known to everyone,

9 and the fact that Mr. McLeod was coming to testify has

10 been known for a substantial period of time. So I

11 think it's fair to say that no one is surprised about

12 his report.

13 Q. Looking at Exhibit 926, Mr. McLeod, is that a

14 copy or true copy of the report that you prepared,

15 based on your work in May 1993?

16 A. This appears to be part of it.

17 Q. And what other parts are there?

18 A. Well, the copy that I've got goes as far as

19 Appendix F, and I think it ought to go a bit further

20 than that.

21 Q. You're absolutely right.

22 Can you inspect what's been handed to you by

23 the usher now, Mr. McLeod, and confirm if that's

24 perhaps a fuller version that goes through Annex S?

25 MR. SAYERS: Your Honour, the version that

1 we've been provided only goes through Annex R.

2 JUDGE MAY: Let's see if the witness has got

3 the same.

4 THE WITNESS: No, this is the same as the

5 first one.

6 MR. SCOTT: The same as the one you just --

7 all right.

8 JUDGE MAY: Have you got a complete copy,

9 Mr. Scott, --

10 MR. SCOTT: That's exactly what I'm doing,

11 Your Honour.

12 JUDGE MAY: -- to give to the witness?

13 Annex S, I see, is in fact the plan at the very back,

14 if you've got that.

15 MR. SAYERS: The last page on my report is

16 R15. It looks like it has a date stamp number of

17 "02/02/66" on the bottom right-hand side.

18 MR. KOVACIC: I'm not sure whether we have

19 the same. The pre-last page is Annex F, which consists

20 of one page and the text on the back, and enclosure to

21 this annex which is marked as F3-3 on the bottom.

22 That's the last one in the set.

23 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, obviously there has

24 been a mistake, and if we can correct it, we will. If

25 everyone wants to have the complete set, which I

1 understand they do, then it will take moments to

2 prepare that for everyone.

3 JUDGE MAY: Let us move on now, but make sure

4 that Mr. Kovacic has a full copy by the time we

5 adjourn.

6 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour.

7 Your Honour, Mr. Nice reminds me, and I only

8 raise it because given these technical problems, and I

9 apologise, that it may be the better use of time -- I

10 know there was discussion of other issues that were

11 going to perhaps be raised today, and I know that

12 Mr. Nice has some comments. Only because of these

13 events, because of these problems, perhaps the better

14 use of time, while these are being corrected, is to go

15 to that.

16 JUDGE MAY: Well, there shouldn't be these

17 sort of problems.

18 MR. SCOTT: I fully agree, Your Honour.

19 JUDGE MAY: And how long are you going to be

20 with this witness?

21 MR. SCOTT: Well, Your Honour, if we can get

22 moving smoothly along, we can do it in another half

23 hour to 35 minutes or so. It's a very important

24 witness. I think even to do this witness in something

25 less than an hour is really moving quite quickly.

1 JUDGE MAY: That may be, but we are

2 adjourning, as you know, at lunchtime tomorrow.

3 MR. SCOTT: I understand that, Your Honour.

4 JUDGE MAY: And there has to be

5 cross-examination.

6 MR. SCOTT: Believe me, Your Honour, we've

7 been aware of that all week long. We've been talking

8 to Mr. McLeod about the scheduling issue, and

9 unfortunately for -- well, mostly unfortunately for

10 him, he understands that he may have to come back.

11 (Trial Chamber confers)

12 JUDGE MAY: Very well, half past 9.00

13 tomorrow.

14 (Trial Chamber confers)

15 JUDGE MAY: What we have in mind is to sit at

16 half past 9.00. Mr. Scott, if you would finish in half

17 an hour, aim to do that, that will leave the Defence

18 with three hours for cross-examination, which seems a

19 generous portion.

20 MR. SAYERS: To expedite matters, Your

21 Honour, might I just ask if we could take a look at the

22 contents of the materials that Mr. McLeod has brought

23 with him just so we can inspect them overnight and

24 maybe expedite the cross-examination tomorrow?

25 JUDGE MAY: Is there any difficulty about

1 that?

2 MR. SCOTT: If there aren't any different

3 materials, no, there's no objection. His notes were --

4 personal notes were copied and provided to Defence

5 counsel some time ago.

6 JUDGE MAY: Perhaps you might like to speak

7 to the witness about it to see what else there is, and

8 surely if there's no objection, to arrange that the

9 Defence have a look at it overnight, which would speed

10 things up.

11 MR. SCOTT: Can we do that now, Your Honour?

12 JUDGE MAY: When I've said this:

13 Mr. McLeod, could you be back tomorrow,

14 please, at half past 9.00?

15 THE WITNESS: Certainly, Sir.

16 JUDGE MAY: Can you remember, during the

17 adjournment, apart from the matter which I've just

18 mentioned, which is about your notes, not to speak to

19 anybody about your evidence during the adjournment?

20 But speak to Mr. Scott about your notes. I don't know

21 what you've got, but perhaps you can explain it to him

22 and, if necessary, it can be disclosed. If you have

23 any objection to it being disclosed, then you must tell

24 Mr. Scott.

25 THE WITNESS: Certainly, Sir.

1 JUDGE MAY: If you would like to go now, and

2 we'll go on and deal with some procedural matters.

3 (The witness withdrew)

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20 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at

21 4.19 p.m., to be reconvened on Friday,

22 the 14th day of May, 1999, at 9.30 a.m.