1 Friday, 14th May, 1999
2 (Open session)
3 (The accused entered court)
4 (The witness entered court)
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.32 a.m.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours.
7 Case number IT-95-14/2-T, the Prosecutor versus Dario
8 Kordic and Mario Cerkez.
9 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Scott.
10 WITNESS: CHARLES MCLEOD (Resumed)
11 Examined by Mr. Scott:
12 Q. If the usher could hand you from yesterday
13 afternoon Exhibit 926, which is, we hope, a complete
14 copy of your report.
15 Can you confirm for us -- my apologies for
16 the problem yesterday afternoon. Can you not confirm
17 for us that that is a complete copy of your report that
18 you prepared as a result of your mission to the Vitez
19 area of Bosnia and Herzegovina between approximately
20 the 4th of May and the 11th or 12th of May, 1993?
21 A. Yes, it is.
22 Q. The report is, is it correct to say, several
23 pages of observations and conclusions, if you will,
24 followed by a series of appendices including the
25 interview notes with various persons you spoke to as
1 you described yesterday; is that correct?
2 A. That is correct, yes.
3 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, in light of the
4 Court's direction to move this along as quickly as
5 possible, I have attempted once again to use a vehicle
6 that hopefully will allow us to do that. I would ask
7 for the usher to please distribute now what's been
8 marked as Z858.2, and to the witness as well, please.
9 Mr. President, if you will allow for the
10 record, this basically outlines the principle points in
11 an abbreviated direct or examination-in-chief that we
12 want to put in front of Mr. McLeod, some of which
13 largely speak for themselves, some of which we will ask
14 to provide some further explanation or insight into.
15 I will tell the Court that it either comes
16 from his report itself, that is, the document which is
17 Exhibit 926, or what we viewed as the most relevant
18 excerpts from his testimony in the Blaskic case, simply
19 again as a vehicle to move us along.
20 JUDGE MAY: Where there is a reference to a
21 report, there is no need to read it out again because
22 we will have read it in the report. We can see it
23 here.
24 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour, I understand
25 that. Obviously by way of presentation and emphasis
1 from the Prosecution's case, this is an outline of the
2 major points we would make.
3 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
4 MR. SCOTT:
5 Q. Mr. McLeod, do you have the outline Z858.2 in
6 front you?
7 A. Yes, I do.
8 Q. Mindful of the Court's admonitions, if you
9 would look, please, at paragraphs 1 and 2? Can you
10 please summarise briefly to the Court the more
11 important parts of the basis for your reaching these
12 conclusions?
13 A. Certainly. These were the conclusions that I
14 reached having been in the Vitez area, carried out all
15 of my interviews, typed them up, thought about it,
16 discussed my tentative conclusions with senior members
17 of the ECMM headquarters back in Zagreb, and then
18 pulled the whole thing together basically into one page
19 which is at the front of my report, and so the
20 conclusions that I reached, which you can see here,
21 were the final thoughts that I had having seen
22 everything, and having talked to everybody, and weighed
23 up what I could see. I think it's fairly
24 self-explanatory.
25 Q. I may have omitted, and it's probably clear
1 from the documents, but you were accompanied on this
2 mission, among others, by another ECMM member,
3 Mr. Friis-Pedersen, is that correct?
4 A. Yes, Mr. Friis-Pedersen was a Danish monitor
5 working in the Zenica regional centre, and I was
6 accompanied by him or by Mr. Jean-Pierre Thebault, who
7 was the head of that regional.
8 Q. Going back to points 1 and 2, can you tell
9 us -- can you highlight for us some of the things that
10 you either physically saw and observed while in the
11 Vitez area or based on your interviews some of the
12 points that led you to reach the conclusions stated in
13 1 and 2?
14 A. The events of the middle of April leading to
15 up the 16th and after the 16th of April, '93, suggested
16 there had been a long period of tension between the two
17 ethnic groups in Central Bosnia. This appeared to have
18 exploded on the morning of the 16th, and there were two
19 versions of events which suggested that either one or
20 the other party had been the instigators of the
21 events. Eventually looking at everything and weighing
22 it up, it seemed to be quite clear to me that the
23 Croats had a political objective to attempt to
24 implement the Vance-Owen Plan as this then stood in
25 Central Bosnia, and they seemed to feel that in order
1 to do that -- and the implication of that would have
2 been they would have been able to establish political
3 and military structures based on the ethnic composition
4 of the canton, or cantons, as they were called,
5 cantons, the areas that they controlled which would
6 reflect the ethnic make-up of the area, and they seemed
7 to believe that as long as the ethnic make-up of the
8 area was almost entirely Croat, then they would be able
9 to implement the Vance-Owen Plan and end up with
10 structures which reflected their own ethnic make-up.
11 In order to ensure that the Vance-Owen Plan
12 would reflect a fundamentally Croatian population, they
13 seemed to believe that they ought to get rid of the
14 Muslim population. One can debate back and forth
15 exactly how they were trying to do that, but it seemed
16 quite clear to me that they were using, for example,
17 the razing of Ahmici as an attempt to physically remove
18 or kill off the Muslim population to allow them to then
19 achieve their political objective.
20 Q. All right. Let me stop you there and --
21 JUDGE BENNOUNA: (Interpretation) Mr. Scott,
22 the witness is saying that, in fact, it's a way of
23 applying the Vance-Owen Plan. Could he specify exactly
24 what he understands by that? Does that mean that this
25 area was going to go to the Croats, according to that
1 plan? Could we have more particulars on that?
2 Does the witness think that this was a way --
3 he said it was a way of applying the Vance-Owen Plan.
4 Could he explain that, please?
5 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour, absolutely.
6 Q. Could you explain, in response to Judge
7 Bennouna's question --
8 A. Certainly.
9 Q. -- what the Vance-Owen -- what the status of
10 the Vance-Owen Plan was at this particular point in
11 time, and I'm sure the Court would like it to be done
12 somewhat briefly, and how that fit into your analysis?
13 A. My understanding, and it is now some time
14 since I last looked at the documents, but my
15 understanding of the Vance-Owen Plan was that they were
16 attempting to create, right across Bosnia, political
17 and military structures which would reflect the ethnic
18 make-up, my understanding, that had originally existed
19 across the country, and the intention was to stabilise
20 events and then, amongst other things, hold elections
21 and so on, to elect political bodies, having to
22 establish them, and also to establish military and
23 police structures that would reflect either
24 Serb-controlled, or Muslim-controlled, or
25 Croat-controlled areas, and where there was a clearly
1 mixed operation, then these structures would have a
2 mixed membership.
3 I think that what the Croats were attempting
4 to do was to ensure that in the areas where they wanted
5 to have control, that they would, in fact, have a
6 majority population when any elections were taking
7 place. So I think that my understanding, my view, was
8 that they were taking the intended political outcome
9 and trying to move the population around to ensure that
10 when they did actually implement the plan, the
11 population would reflect their objectives.
12 I gained the impression that they were trying
13 to move slightly faster in their areas than the rest of
14 Bosnia could move by saying, "We now have an area which
15 is controlled by ourselves and which we are the
16 majority ethnic group, and we would like to implement
17 the Vance-Owen Plan now," which would then provide --
18 my view was is that they were then trying to provide
19 some international recognition and legitimacy for what
20 they were doing. Clearly, there were other areas which
21 were Serb-controlled, for example, where it was simply
22 impossible to try and do this, and they seemed to be
23 trying to steal a march on the political process that
24 was otherwise taking place around them.
25 MR. SCOTT: Before we continue, Mr. Usher,
1 could you put a copy of this on the ELMO for the
2 gallery and anyone who might not have a hard copy in
3 front of them?
4 (Trial Chamber confers)
5 JUDGE MAY: We were considering, Mr. Sayers,
6 the status of the evidence, because clearly the witness
7 is giving evidence about matters which we are going to
8 have to determine ultimately. They are matters which
9 are in issue. As to whether there was such a plan is
10 very much in issue, as I understand it. Now, one knows
11 the rules about opinion evidence. The tentative view
12 that we have come to about it is this, that while this
13 witness's expertise is essentially that of a soldier,
14 he was on the ground at the time, he had some
15 experience as a European Monitor, and, therefore, we're
16 prepared to admit the evidence of his opinions but on
17 the understanding, of course, that these are matters
18 which we have to decide, and it is entirely a matter
19 for us what weight, if any, with respect to the witness
20 we give to his opinions.
21 MR. SAYERS: I don't want to spend too much
22 time on this, Judge May. I think you've actually
23 anticipated the point that I was going to make. I'd
24 just like to make that point and a different point.
25 This gentleman has not been identified as an expert
1 witness, and I understood yesterday that he was going
2 to be permitted to give opinions relating to whatever
3 military expertise that he has, but apparently he comes
4 in today with panoramic opinions on sociological,
5 political, and essentially the issues and the main
6 point that is at issue. He's really giving a new
7 expert report beyond and above what he's already
8 provided to the Court in his one-page conclusions and
9 appendices.
10 I didn't want to let this go without an
11 objection from our perspective for two reasons: First,
12 it's beyond any competence that he has, beyond the
13 military competence certainly; secondly, we have not
14 had this gentleman identified as an expert witness, and
15 certainly the Prosecution has had to do that since
16 they've identified Dr. Donia as an expert and provided
17 his report and followed the requirements of Rule 94
18 bis. Those are the only points that I wanted to make.
19 JUDGE MAY: I think that we've given the
20 ruling before the objection. No matter, I think it's
21 going to be very much a matter of weight. As I say,
22 the witness was there at the time. We've said he's
23 entitled to express a view, but, of course, it's all
24 subject to what weight, if any, we decide to give it.
25 MR. SAYERS: Thank you very much.
1 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Scott, you hear the way we
2 intend to approach this. Perhaps, in light of that,
3 you could take the matter very briefly.
4 MR. SCOTT: I'm attempting to, Your Honour.
5 I need to respond very clearly, Your Honour, and very
6 briefly to two points. One is that this report has
7 been provided and known to all the Defence. It was
8 passed out as part of the supporting materials months,
9 if not years ago. It is nothing new. The conclusions
10 are not a new report. The conclusions stated in
11 paragraphs 1 and 2 are stated on page 1 of this
12 report. I just want to make that clear. He is not
13 stating anything that has not already been.
14 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Scott, let's move on. Let's
15 not spend time on the procedural matters.
16 MR. SCOTT:
17 Q. Can you tell the Court, what did you see, for
18 instance, in the village of Ahmici when you visited it
19 on May the 4th which led you to believe that, in that
20 particular instance, it involved what's come to be
21 known as ethnic cleansing?
22 A. As we saw yesterday in the video clip very
23 briefly, in fact, the video showed only a small portion
24 of what happened, in the village, a large number of the
25 houses had been burnt. There were still some houses
1 which appeared not to have been touched at all. I
2 understood, as we were going through the village, that
3 the houses that hadn't been touched were occupied by
4 Croats and the houses that had been destroyed had been
5 occupied by Muslims. Most of the houses that had been
6 destroyed had had their roofs burnt, as you saw
7 yesterday on the video. Quite a number of the houses
8 had contained bodies that had been burnt that were
9 either discovered on that day or had been discovered
10 previously by Colonel Bob Stewart.
11 The reason why one could conclude that this
12 appeared to be ethnic cleansing was that in most of the
13 villages where that sort of activity had taken place,
14 it was characteristic that houses would be destroyed by
15 burning them as opposed to being destroyed by violent
16 shooting. Again, there were clearly examples of
17 villages which one saw which had been fought over
18 extensively, and there, one would see that walls were
19 pockmarked by bullets and so on, and in Ahmici, that
20 simply wasn't the case. It appeared that a bunch of
21 people had gone through the village systematically from
22 house to house either evicting people or killing them
23 in the houses and then burning the houses. Given that
24 the preponderance of houses that had been destroyed
25 were Muslim as opposed to Croat ones, which appeared
1 not to have been touched, it seemed quite clear that it
2 was the Croats who had done the destroying rather than
3 the Muslims.
4 Q. Mr. McLeod, two points. I'm sorry. Number
5 1, I don't know about anyone else, but could you please
6 try to keep your voice up maybe a bit and also for the
7 reporter speak a little more slowly.
8 A. Certainly.
9 Q. Do you recall what the condition of the
10 mosque in Ahmici was at the time of your visit, if you
11 can tell us that briefly?
12 A. The mosque had been attacked in some way, and
13 the minaret had been blown up, so it was lying across
14 the top of the mosque.
15 Q. All right. Moving on to paragraph 3, what
16 was the basis for your conclusion or characterising the
17 attack on the 16th of April as "coordinated"?
18 A. This was basically in light of the reporting
19 and briefing which I received from both the ECMM and
20 UNPROFOR, particularly UNPROFOR, who had troops out on
21 the ground and heard what was going on. They advised
22 me quite clearly that attacks had broken out in a
23 number of places at the same time, and that suggested
24 that there was some form of coordination about it.
25 Q. All right. We will move through some of the
1 items which we will not come back to specifically but
2 the subject matter will come back up, 4, 5, and 6,
3 without further commentary at this time, unless the
4 Court has questions. Moving to point number 7, and
5 before we get into point number 7, you stated a few
6 moments ago that when you arrived in the Vitez area,
7 there were essentially, I'm not back in the transcript,
8 but something to the effect, Mr. McLeod, of two stories
9 or schools of thought on what had happened, if I can
10 say it that way.
11 A. Certainly.
12 Q. Can you tell the Court what those schools of
13 thought were?
14 A. Indeed, there were perhaps three different
15 schools of thought.
16 Q. All right.
17 A. The two most obvious ones were, first of all,
18 that the Muslims had launched an attack on Vitez
19 attempting to cut Vitez off from Busovaca, and that in
20 the course of that attack, they had destroyed Ahmici;
21 the second was that Ahmici had been destroyed by Serb
22 special forces or agent provocateur in an attempt to
23 destabilise the relations between the Croats and the
24 Muslims in that area; the third version was that the
25 Croats had launched an attack on the Muslims in an
1 attempt to do something to them.
2 Q. All right. In reference to paragraph 7, two
3 of the people you interviewed, is it correct, were Ivan
4 Santic, the mayor of Vitez, and Pero Skopljak, who was
5 the police commander in Vitez; is that correct?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Their explanation or story to you was that
8 "As a result of a Muslim attack on the 16th of April,
9 there had been a chaotic defence of Vitez in which the
10 Muslims were displaced from their villages around
11 Vitez," and you characterised --
12 JUDGE MAY: There's an objection, Mr. Scott.
13 MR. SAYERS: I don't mean to interfere, Your
14 Honour, but we're dealing with a summary of what the
15 Court has already read, and the question is pretty
16 leading, and I object to that.
17 MR. SCOTT: I'll rephrase the question, Your
18 Honour.
19 JUDGE MAY: It's the most non-controversial
20 matter, really, about whom the witness met. Can we get
21 on with it?
22 MR. SCOTT: Yes.
23 Q. Why did you view that assessment and the
24 three schools of thought that you've just mentioned to
25 us as incredible?
1 A. Very simply, it struck me, having talked to
2 people on both sides and talked both to Mr. Santic and
3 also then Colonel Blaskic, who gave me almost exactly
4 the same story, as impossible that the Muslims had been
5 attacking the Croats who had been, according to their
6 story, caught completely by surprise and had mounted a
7 defence, if at the same time in Vitez, the Croats had
8 been arresting a number of prominent Muslims. Because
9 it struck me that if there had been a surprise attack
10 mounted against the Croats, then they would have been
11 defending themselves rather than rounding up people who
12 were evidently in their beds, and equally, if there had
13 been a surprise attack by the Muslims, and those very
14 gentlemen would probably not have been asleep in their
15 beds but would have been expecting something to
16 happen. The story just didn't hang together.
17 JUDGE MAY: Sorry, I have missed and I want,
18 for the purpose of my note, to have the three schools
19 of thought. These were what people told you on the
20 ground?
21 A. Yes.
22 JUDGE MAY: That's what you base that on?
23 A. Yes.
24 JUDGE MAY: The first school of thought was
25 that the Muslims had launched an attack on Vitez to cut
1 it off from Busovaca, in the course of which Ahmici had
2 been destroyed; is that correct?
3 A. That's correct. So that was a school of
4 thought that the Croats were expounding.
5 JUDGE MAY: The second was, I think you said,
6 that Ahmici had been destroyed by Serb forces.
7 A. Again, some of the Croats were suggesting
8 that this was being done by agent provocateur from
9 outside to try and just cause trouble between the
10 Croats and Muslims.
11 JUDGE MAY: And the third?
12 A. That the Croats attacked Ahmici, and Stari
13 Vitez, and various other places.
14 MR. SCOTT:
15 Q. All right. Now, I'm going to come back to
16 the some of the points we just made, in a moment, if I
17 can. Before we move forward in an effort at speed, and
18 skipping over paragraphs 4, 5, and 6, let me say just
19 so the record is clear, if you can glance back at those
20 for one minute, those are your conclusions, and if we
21 were to do it in a more traditional way this morning,
22 that would be your testimony; is that correct?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. In the course of your interview with
25 Mr. Santic and Mr. Skopljak, was there anything else
1 about -- did you observe any other conduct or
2 statements by Mr. Santic, in particular, or both of
3 them, or either of them, which cast further light on
4 their outlook or policy toward the Muslims in the Vitez
5 area?
6 A. Yes. Mr. Santic spoke at great length and
7 the details are all in my report. He started off by
8 adopting what seemed to be a fairly balanced view which
9 then, over the course of an hour or so, became
10 increasingly extreme to the point where he was
11 explaining exactly what he thought about what one
12 should do with the Muslim population. It was he who
13 set out in very clear detail his views about what
14 should happen with the Vance-Owen Plan and its
15 implementation.
16 Quite early on -- or right at the very
17 beginning of the interview, he identified my
18 interpreter, who was a Muslim, and he appeared to be
19 taking some pleasure in some of the things he was
20 saying just to wind her up.
21 Q. Going on to point 8, and I'm just pausing,
22 Your Honour, just to give everyone a chance to look at
23 that without reading it myself.
24 In reference to your interview with
25 Mr. Blaskic, can you tell us the various points or
1 amplify, as stated here, on why you thought his
2 position was, again, untenable?
3 A. Then Colonel Blaskic gave me, again, a very
4 clear explanation of what he thought had happened
5 during that morning, saying that he had been working
6 from his bed and there had been this fighting that
7 broke out, and they had mounted a defence of Vitez and
8 various other places. His description of what happened
9 thereafter all seemed to tie in with exactly what the
10 UNPROFOR briefing had suggested, but it was quite clear
11 that these people -- these Muslims had been arrested in
12 Vitez that morning, because I met some of them and
13 talked to them either in prison or out of prison, and
14 the Croats didn't try and hide the fact that these
15 people had been arrested that morning.
16 As I've already said, I simply can't imagine
17 how, if you're being attacked, you can, at the same
18 time you're trying to defend yourself, start rounding
19 up key individuals and imprisoning. So the logic of
20 what Blaskic was saying just didn't tie together with
21 the events which patently had been taking place that
22 morning.
23 Q. Let me direct your attention, please, and the
24 Court's, to appendix A2 of your report, Exhibit 926.
25 It is -- excuse me, Your Honour. A2-1, the last four
1 digits would be 7628, I believe. I hope. There may
2 be -- again, Your Honour, due to different copying,
3 there might be different numbers, but it is appendix
4 A2-1.
5 Q. Do you have that, Mr. McLeod?
6 A. Yes, I do.
7 Q. At the top of the page is that a list of the
8 13, as described here, leading Muslims arrested in
9 Vitez on the morning of the 16th of April, 1993?
10 A. Yes. This is a list that was given to me by
11 the Muslims, but the list seemed to be consistent and
12 nobody seemed to be disputing the fact.
13 Q. If we look toward the bottom half of that
14 page, are those the positions that those people held in
15 the community at that time?
16 A. Yes. What you've got down at the bottom of
17 the page is the English translation of the titles which
18 are written next to each of the names at the top half
19 of the page. So I understand that's what the people
20 actually did.
21 Q. Based on your ten years of military
22 experience, can you explain to the Court, please, the
23 significance, from a military planning, coordination,
24 and execution point of view of arresting 13 people
25 about the same time, early in the morning?
1 A. Yes. It strikes me that to pick up that
2 number of people, and I have -- I nearly had experience
3 of doing the same thing in West Belfast, having
4 prepared for an operation to go and pick somebody out
5 of a pub. I eventually didn't actually do it. When we
6 were doing it, we had about a couple of platoons, so
7 about 60 people to pick up one person.
8 Q. This was one man in Northern Ireland?
9 A. One man in Northern Ireland. Slightly
10 different warfare but the same basic principles
11 applying.
12 I imagine -- I don't know, but I can imagine
13 how they could have used easily five people to pick up
14 each of these, ten people perhaps. So you're soaking
15 up 60, 130 of the Croatian forces. Colonel Blaskic had
16 said that he had about 350 regular troops. I don't
17 know whether these people are being picked up by the
18 army or by the police, perhaps, but you're taking --
19 even if it's five people to arrest each individual,
20 65 -- that's 20 per cent of his total force.
21 They were all picked up more or less at the
22 same time in the morning apparently. That's the story
23 which seemed to come from them as I spoke to them in
24 the prison, and from everybody else.
25 Q. Would that indicate to you a certain amount
1 of advanced planning and coordination?
2 A. I can't imagine how particularly if the
3 Croats were under a surprise attack by the Muslims they
4 could have taken a significant portion of their force
5 to then go off around a number of houses and then
6 arrest people, and to pick up 13 people, certainly had
7 I been doing it, would have taken an awful lot of
8 preplanning and preparation. It's not something that I
9 think would have happened without anybody knowing about
10 it. I simply can't imagine how that would happen.
11 Q. Focusing your attention, please, on the last
12 part of paragraph 8 where you say, "I find it extremely
13 implausible," can you again, please, briefly amplify on
14 that? What basis do you have for making that
15 statement?
16 A. Well, the suggestion was that Colonel Blaskic
17 didn't know what was going on. Again, I can't imagine,
18 given the position which I understand that he held,
19 that an operation of this size could have been taking
20 place without him being aware of it because, again, I
21 don't know exactly how it was done but I can imagine
22 that a significant portion of the troops available for
23 the defence of Vitez, first thing in the morning, would
24 have been deployed to go pick up people who appear to
25 be very prominent members of the local population. If
1 he was the boss, and he appeared to be the boss, then I
2 can't imagine how it would have gone on without him
3 being fully aware of what was going on and he probably
4 having planned it.
5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Scott. I want to find
6 out whether the persons who were picked up were
7 confined to leading persons as you described them, on
8 the basis of the information that you had. Were other
9 persons picked up apart from leading personnel?
10 A. I understand, and we could look at the note
11 which I wrote at my meeting with the mayor of Vitez,
12 that, in fact, a number of other people had also been
13 detained or held in some way, because he made the point
14 that, in fact, all of the other people had been
15 released other than 13 who were being held. So I
16 think, in fact, there were more than that but these
17 were the key prominent people.
18 MR. SCOTT: Judge Robinson, would you like
19 more?
20 JUDGE ROBINSON: No. Thank you.
21 MR. SCOTT:
22 Q. Just very briefly looking back at paragraph
23 number 4, of these 13, apparently two had been shot
24 dead while being arrested, two by 11 May had been
25 released, and the remaining, I guess it would be nine,
1 were still in prison at the time?
2 A. That was my understanding of it. I certainly
3 met one of the men who had been released, and I met a
4 number of them in Kaonik Prison.
5 Q. Let me then go back to -- all right, moving
6 forward then, paragraph 9 and 10 is your -- is an
7 accurate statement of your position and you would so
8 testify this morning?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. You've already made reference to other
11 statements, explicit statements made by Mr. Santic
12 earlier, and is it fair that the one cited in paragraph
13 10 would be one of those?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. In the sequence of your interviews, is it
16 fair to say that you had spoke with Mr. Santic and
17 Mr. Skopljak immediately prior to speaking with
18 Mr. Blaskic?
19 A. That's correct.
20 Q. In reference to the observation made in point
21 11, would you draw any conclusion from Mr. Blaskic's
22 statement at that time? I guess I'll say
23 "Colonel Blaskic," given his rank at that time.
24 Did you draw any conclusion from that
25 statement made by Colonel Blaskic, based on your
1 interview with him and with the other parts of your
2 interviews and investigation?
3 A. It would have to be a fairly tentative
4 conclusion but it struck me that he was a military
5 man. We were having a conversation as an ex-soldier
6 and a serving soldier. He didn't seem -- some of what
7 he was saying suggested that he didn't seem totally
8 comfortable with what was going on but he was clearly
9 involved in doing it.
10 There was such a marked difference between
11 the view that he was putting across and the view that I
12 just heard from the political -- Croatian political
13 leadership in Vitez. Whereas normally I simply sat and
14 listened to people and wrote down what they were
15 saying, I actually challenged him and pointed out the
16 fact that he was saying something which sound
17 different.
18 It may well have been that as a military man
19 he was doing what he'd been told to do but some of what
20 he was doing, presumably that would include things like
21 Ahmici, he didn't feel terribly comfortable with.
22 Q. If we can go on to point number 12. Is that
23 an accurate statement? Is that your testimony this
24 morning, to that effect?
25 A. Yes, that's exactly what I wrote in my
1 report.
2 Q. By the way, can you tell the Court, did you
3 have any understanding or come to know during your work
4 in the Vitez area in May 1993, that you were being
5 closely watched by the HVO authorities?
6 A. I'm not sure whether there was a consistent
7 programme to watch what was happening, but certainly
8 when I stopped and talked to people on a couple of
9 occasions and, again, it's noted in the report, at some
10 point either the Croatian police turned up. In
11 Busovaca, when I was talking to the imam, they actually
12 came into his house and attempted to join in the
13 conversation. Also in Vitez, when I went and talked to
14 a gentleman, fairly rapidly somebody -- his neighbour
15 came round just to find out exactly what was going on
16 and the conversation stopped at both those points.
17 Q. Did you find that Mr. Sadibasic and his wife
18 became very nervous when the neighbour appeared and the
19 interview was terminated?
20 A. Yes. They were extremely uncomfortable.
21 Q. Did you identify who the HVO leader was who
22 appeared at their house during the interview?
23 A. At this stage I can't remember. We could
24 check in the report to see whether I actually wrote
25 down a name. He was identified as somebody who was a
1 neighbour who was involved in the HVO, I think. He was
2 certainly a Croat. He came round to find out what was
3 going on. They became very uncomfortable, so we said,
4 "Thanks very much," and we left.
5 Q. The second incident that you mentioned, that
6 would be found -- and for the Court's reference, I'm
7 not suggesting you necessarily have to go there now,
8 but this would be reflected in appendix P1 the
9 interview of Mr. Sadibasic and, also, in appendix K1,
10 which was the interview of the imam of Busovaca.
11 Back on the second occasion, there were three
12 HVO police officers who showed up while you were
13 interviewing the imam?
14 A. I think that they were civilian police rather
15 than HVO police but, yes.
16 Q. Excuse me. From the local Bosnian Croat
17 government authorities?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Let me direct your attention to paragraph
20 13. That is an accurate statement and would be your
21 testimony this morning?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Could you just add to this in terms of what
24 did you learn in terms of the authority or procedure,
25 if you will, for members of the HVO to essentially, if
1 I can use the term, check people out, to take people
2 from Kaonik, prisoners, for the purposes of trench
3 digging? What was the process for doing that, as you
4 learned it?
5 A. Again, there's a fairly lengthy conversation
6 or interview we had with Mr. Aleksovski, who was
7 running the prison. He made it quite clear that he was
8 just doing his best as a professional gaoler, and that
9 he was to a very large extent in the hands of the local
10 HVO Brigade commanders, Busovaca and Vitez, and that
11 they would either bring him people or from time to time
12 they would take people away.
13 He was quite -- he gave us an example of a
14 release certificate being signed for somebody being
15 taken away for a prisoner exchange, as far as I could
16 see. I'm not entirely clear there was a routine for
17 taking people out to dig trenches, although it was
18 quite clear from what Aleksovski was saying that that
19 was the case. From his description, I'm not quite
20 clear whether actually it was the prison guards
21 themselves who were taking people up on to the
22 trenches.
23 That's the impression that I was given, but
24 certainly he was quite clear in some of his
25 descriptions of what was happening, that they did take
1 people up on to the front line and that occasionally --
2 he gave an example, there was fighting on the front
3 line and they actually lost a couple of prisoners
4 during fighting. It wasn't clear that they were either
5 shot or they just ran away during the confusion.
6 Q. Can you tell us whether he described or did
7 you come to know -- did the brigade commanders -- did
8 someone at the brigade commander level have the ability
9 to go to Kaonik and take prisoners or detainees out for
10 various details?
11 A. I'm not clear that at that stage that we were
12 aware of that.
13 Q. All right. We'll move on. Your full
14 interview with Mr. Aleksovski is attached in your
15 report; is that correct?
16 A. That is correct, yes.
17 Q. Now, moving on to paragraph 14, the
18 suggestion here -- there was a transfer -- some
19 suggestion there was an attempt to move -- as you said
20 earlier in relation to the Vance-Owen Plan.
21 I apologise, Your Honour. I don't know how
22 else to jump into this subject.
23 Moving populations, various ethnic groups
24 around to achieve the desired population make-up in a
25 particular location, and that you talked about that
1 earlier in relation to the Vance-Owen Plan; is that
2 correct?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Did you find, during your work in May, 1993,
5 that while there were apparently attempts to move
6 Muslims out of areas, that it would appear there were
7 also attempts to move some of the Croats from one area
8 to another area?
9 A. Yes. It was quite clear from both what I was
10 told by the Muslim political leadership in Zenica and
11 also by the reports from the ECMM, which are contained
12 at the back of my report, that 2000 is the number that
13 was being talked about. Croats had attempted to leave
14 and then had left Zenica so the Muslim-controlled town
15 to go back across the hill to Vitez and the suggestion
16 was that they had been either advised, told, or had got
17 the idea that it would be a good idea to move as a
18 result of propaganda or information being disseminated
19 by the Croats in Vitez.
20 Q. How would moving Croats out of a particular
21 area be consistent with a plan, as you described it a
22 few minutes ago, to implement the Vance-Owen Plan in a
23 particular way?
24 A. It would have two effects. It would have the
25 effect, on the one hand, of demonstrating that there
1 were no Croats in the Muslim-controlled area.
2 Therefore, that should remain a Muslim-controlled
3 area. It would also have the effect, if you moved a
4 significant number of Croats, additional Croats into
5 what was otherwise, generally, a Croat dominated area
6 that you would have even more Croats in that area which
7 would make the ethnic mix even more clearly one-sided.
8 If the idea was that you should prove that the ethnic
9 mix in a particular area was predominantly Croat or
10 Muslim, and then implement the plan so that you would
11 have political and military structures dominated by
12 that particular group, then that would fit exactly with
13 what Mr. Santic, for example, was explaining to me is
14 what they were trying to do.
15 Q. Did you hear at the time or in your
16 continuing work with Yugoslavia, as indicated in your
17 background yesterday, did you ever hear the term of
18 "self-cleansing"?
19 A. No, I didn't come across that as a term, but
20 it's quite clear what I was describing could be termed
21 as self-cleansing, where a particular population group
22 is saying, "Well, for whatever reasons, we think we
23 ought to move out of one area and into another area so
24 that we can get the ethnic balance right".
25 Q. In the latter part of paragraph 14, you make
1 the statement or observation that many Croats did leave
2 their houses as a result of propaganda they heard from
3 Vitez. Is it correct that Vitez was a Bosnian
4 Croat-controlled area?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. In paragraph 15, that would be your testimony
7 this morning, sir?
8 A. Yes, that's correct. That's exactly what was
9 in my report.
10 Q. What is the significance of or the conclusion
11 you suggest by this observation, the fact that most of
12 the Croat population had returned to their homes a
13 short time later?
14 A. The clear impression which I was given, both
15 by the Muslim political leadership and also by the ECMM
16 working in the area and by the Catholic priests working
17 with the Croatian population in the Zenica area, was
18 that a number of things had happened which were clearly
19 wrong in terms of people either being killed or moved
20 out of their houses and their houses looted and so on,
21 and that there's quite a lot of evidence that -- or the
22 evidence that I was given is contained in the report,
23 that people seemed to be attempting to stabilise the
24 situation as best they could with the objective of
25 having a multi-ethnic community because that seemed to
1 be what the political leadership in Zenica wanted.
2 Q. And Zenica being identified as primarily a
3 Muslim-controlled or dominated area; is that correct?
4 A. Absolutely, yes.
5 Q. Your experience and observation was that by
6 early May of 1993, most of the Croat population was
7 able to move back into the Zenica municipality?
8 A. Yes. That was clearly what they were trying
9 to do. I think there was some suggestion that some of
10 the Croats, who had left the Zenica area, moved across
11 to Vitez and who then wanted to return, were being
12 prevented from coming back by the Croats, but I'm not
13 sure exactly why that was going on.
14 Q. All right. Paragraph 16 and 17, that would
15 be your testimony today, Mr. McLeod?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Paragraph 18, I think by now, has been
18 touched on, but you affirm that again is a true
19 statement in terms of your testimony?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Paragraph --
22 JUDGE MAY: Before we move on, I notice in
23 that paragraph, in inverted commas, the words "by a
24 little bit of extreme violence," I would like to ask
25 the witness this: Are those your words taken out of
1 one of your reports? I don't recollect.
2 A. I think, sir, that is a comment which I made
3 during one of my previous appearances here.
4 JUDGE MAY: Is that right, Mr. Scott? Is
5 that where that comes from?
6 MR. SCOTT: It actually came from his
7 testimony in the Blaskic case, Your Honour.
8 JUDGE MAY: Thank you.
9 MR. SCOTT:
10 Q. Now, paragraph 19 would be your testimony
11 today as well; correct?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Now, you've touched on earlier already the
14 three schools of thought that the President asked you
15 about. Did you come to the conclusion, your own
16 conclusion as a result of your work as to which of
17 these schools of thought, based on your investigation,
18 was the most plausible or some that were not plausible?
19 A. I think it's quite clear from what I saw in
20 the conclusion that I reached that it was, if you like,
21 the third school of thought which was that the Croats
22 had initiated a coordinated series of attacks
23 throughout Central Bosnia with a view to changing the
24 ethnic basis of the areas in which they controlled.
25 Q. Did you see any indication that Serbs had
1 been involved in the attack on Ahmici?
2 A. No.
3 Q. Finally, paragraph 20, other than -- well,
4 first of all, you'd affirm that again this would be
5 your testimony this morning -- this is your testimony
6 this morning?
7 A. Yes. It's worth pointing out that at this
8 stage, and we debated this at some length last year,
9 the words that "Kordic seems to be the man calling the
10 shots" were my summary at the point when I took up
11 writing my note again of what we'd been talking about,
12 as opposed to his words, but that was clearly the
13 impression which I had.
14 Q. All right. My question here is when you went
15 to Vitez in early May and the discussions with
16 Ambassador Thebault and others, you had put together a
17 list of people you hoped or thought you will like to
18 interview; is that fair to say?
19 A. Yes, that's quite correct. Right at the
20 beginning of the trip, I sat down with Jean-Pierre and
21 we worked out who the people were I ought to see to try
22 and get this --
23 JUDGE BENNOUNA: (Interpretation) Mr. Scott,
24 before we go over to that, in paragraph 20, it says in
25 English: "According to the imam of Busovaca," and then
1 there's a quotation, "Kordic seems to be the man
2 calling the shots." Apparently, the witness seems to
3 be saying that he's quoting the imam of Busovaca. Is
4 that hearsay? Did he hear directly from the imam?
5 Could we have more details on that sentence? Because
6 in that paragraph, you have one sentence in quotation
7 marks which seems to be a quotation, and it's being
8 attributed to the imam of Busovaca. I would like to
9 know what the link is between the two parts of that
10 paragraph, of that first line of paragraph 20.
11 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour. If I can start
12 with the witness, as the witness just indicated, I
13 think he's trying to be very conscientious about this,
14 the quotation marks around "Kordic seems to be the man
15 calling the shots," that is a quotation in the sense
16 that it's being quoted from his own report and from his
17 own notes. I think the witness has indicated, and he
18 can confirm this, the quotation marks are not meant to
19 suggest that those are the exact words of the imam of
20 Busovaca.
21 Before I ask him that, the second part of the
22 statement, the second quote that you reference in
23 paragraph 20, Your Honour, I will just tell you again
24 comes from Mr. McLeod's testimony in the Blaskic case.
25 Q. As to the first part, Mr. McLeod, going back
1 to your prior answer, can you clarify that further for
2 Judge Bennouna and for the rest of the Court as to your
3 taking down or referring to that statement?
4 A. Certainly. The writing in inverted commas
5 comes directly out of the report which I wrote. If it
6 will be useful, I can show you my original note that I
7 wrote sitting in the front room of the imam. I
8 actually wrote -- shall we stick it up?
9 Q. Sure. That's fine. For the record and so
10 the Court knows, you're referring to your original
11 handwritten notes from your interviews and from your
12 work?
13 A. Yes. This is the original note written in
14 the notebook as I was writing, taking notes. You can
15 see, I suppose --
16 MR. SCOTT: It's on the ELMO, Your Honour,
17 but it hasn't been handed out. But I will say that a
18 copy of these notes were provided to the Defence some
19 time ago.
20 A. You can see what I wrote as I was sitting
21 with him "Kordic seems to be the man calling the
22 shots." At this stage, six years later, I honestly
23 can't remember whether that was me simply writing down
24 exactly what the imam said or me picking up the flow of
25 the conversation again and just writing for my own
1 reference, summarising what we've just been talking
2 about. On the preceding page, I can show you that the
3 imam had been showing me a pass which he had been
4 issued with, and I'd wrote down the names of the people
5 who had signed the pass, one of them being Mr. Kordic.
6 Having looked at that and written down the names,
7 either he said, "Kordic seems to be the man calling the
8 shots," or is it me just summarising, "Kordic seems to
9 be the man calling the shots --"
10 MR. SCOTT: Mr. McLeod, I'm sorry, but on
11 behalf of the reporter, could you please slow down a
12 bit?
13 JUDGE MAY: You talk quickly.
14 THE WITNESS: I apologise.
15 JUDGE MAY: Keep an eye on the lady in the
16 corner and see if she's all right.
17 JUDGE BENNOUNA: (Interpretation) Mr. Scott,
18 if I understand correctly, Mr. McLeod, these notes were
19 written down right after the meeting with the imam of
20 Busovaca; is that right? The notes that we are being
21 shown, they were written by you right after the meeting
22 with the imam of Busovaca; is that right?
23 A. I wrote these notes during the meeting, so I
24 was sitting with my book on the imam's table, and I was
25 writing as he was speaking. So quite a lot of the
1 notes are exactly what the interpreter was saying as
2 she was translating what he said, and some of the notes
3 are my interjections, as I was just trying to keep
4 track of the conversation as we went. This is written
5 during the conversation rather than after the
6 conversation.
7 MR. SCOTT: Judge Bennouna, it might be
8 helpful to you and to the other members of the Court if
9 I could direct your attention to appendix K2, which is
10 the interview statement with the imam, where you can
11 see in appendix K, page 2, and I'm looking to the fifth
12 paragraph on that page, starting with the words, "He
13 has a pass ..."
14 Q. You just touched on this --
15 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour.
16 JUDGE BENNOUNA: (Interpretation) I don't have
17 annex K. What page is it exactly? What is the number
18 at the bottom of the page?
19 MR. SCOTT: I have to say in the version I
20 have, Your Honour, it's --
21 JUDGE BENNOUNA: Which paragraph?
22 MR. SCOTT: It's the fifth paragraph from the
23 top starting with the words, "He has a pass ..." which
24 is the next question I'm going to ask --
25 THE INTERPRETER: Page 3 in French.
1 MR. SCOTT: Page 3 in French, apparently,
2 Your Honour.
3 JUDGE MAY: Second page.
4 JUDGE BENNOUNA: Second page. In French, it
5 is the last page?
6 THE INTERPRETER: It's right before the
7 number 020230.
8 MR. SCOTT: I heard from the interpreter at
9 one point that it was on page 3 of the French version.
10 The top of the last page of the French version. I
11 apologise.
12 Q. Now, you had just mentioned, and I was coming
13 to this in any event, during that interview, did he,
14 the imam, show you a pass that he had been given by
15 certain HVO authorities?
16 A. Yes, he did.
17 Q. Was one of the names on that pass Dario
18 Kordic?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Now, going back to, in general, paragraph 20,
21 you had indicated a few minutes ago now --
22 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour.
23 JUDGE ROBINSON: You said one of the names on
24 the pass was Dario Kordic. In what capacity was it
25 represented there?
1 MR. SCOTT:
2 Q. Do you recall the reference to Mr. Kordic's
3 position or in what capacity he had signed the pass?
4 For the record, you've put your notes back on the
5 ELMO.
6 A. Yes. It's page 61, to assist you finding the
7 version you've been given. So you can see I've simply
8 written "He has a pass signed by," and then I've just
9 written down the names, and "Dario Kordic" from the
10 "HDZ." The pass was signed the 1st of May.
11 Q. You had said a few minutes ago that when you
12 knew you were going to Vitez or perhaps soon after you
13 got there, you prepared some list, either mentally or
14 on paper perhaps, of people who you would want to
15 interview as part of your job; is that correct?
16 A. That is correct.
17 Q. Was Dario Kordic one of the people on your
18 list?
19 A. Yes, he was.
20 Q. Why did you think he was one of the people
21 you would want to interview?
22 A. It was quite clear to the members of ECMM,
23 with whom I was talking, by then he was a key player, a
24 key individual in the events that were taking place
25 around that area. The first occasion where I had come
1 across his name in the context of this report was when
2 I was reading through the ECMM daily reports on events
3 that were taking place while I was sorting out in my
4 own mind, as I had described yesterday, what had
5 happened. There was one event where a UNHCR convoy had
6 been, in my report, I said "highjacked," which is
7 presumably the term which was used in the ECMM report,
8 at Busovaca, and the instruction was given by the
9 Croatian military command to Mr. Kordic to release the
10 convoy. He was the man who had some control over
11 events in Busovaca.
12 Q. I'm sorry. That order was given to
13 Mr. Kordic or Kordic gave the order? If you want to
14 look at your notes, please do.
15 A. Yes. The order was given to him. Yes. This
16 is my note of the ECMM report as opposed to the
17 original. Presumably someone could get a hold of the
18 original report.
19 THE INTERPRETER: Will the witness please
20 slow down?
21 A. This is my note of the ECMM report --
22 MR. SAYERS: I have to object to that, Your
23 Honour, on the grounds of double hearsay. He says that
24 it's a note that he made of an original report that
25 someone else prepared and which he read.
1 (Trial Chamber confers)
2 JUDGE MAY: We're satisfied this has got the
3 stamp of reliability. This was a note which the
4 witness made in the course of his professional duties
5 of an official document.
6 MR. SCOTT:
7 Q. Looking at that note then, Mr. McLeod, can
8 you tell us or clarify, perhaps on the ELMO, you can
9 point to which particular entry you're talking about?
10 A. All right. This is on page R-14, if anybody
11 wants to find it. It's right at the back of the
12 report. So the ECMM report said that the HVO commander
13 in chief, Petkovic, had ordered Mr. Kordic to release
14 the convoy.
15 Q. All right. Mr. Petkovic was in the military
16 chain of command; correct?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. In fact, you didn't wind up talking to
19 Mr. Kordic during that trip, did you?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Can you tell us, please, in conclusion, what
22 happened with your report when it was made? Just in
23 terms of did you report this back to the head of the
24 ECMM, just to finish the story, can you tell the Court
25 what became of your report as you understood it, and
1 was it used as the basis of further actions by the ECMM
2 and the EU?
3 A. Yes. I got back up to Zagreb on the 12th,
4 13th of May, finished writing up my report. I started
5 typing up the notes as I was going, but it was finished
6 and published on the 15th, having been proofed and
7 approved by the headquarters of ECMM. Copies were then
8 distributed to each of the delegations who then passed
9 it back to their capitals, I imagine, fairly rapidly.
10 At the same time, Mostar was exploding, I suppose is
11 the neatest way of describing it, and I think there was
12 an EU mission to Mostar. So ECMM was writing a
13 briefing paper for the EU ministers, I think it was the
14 ministers who were going to Mostar, and the basis of my
15 report was used as a key part of that briefing material
16 which was being written by Mr. Andersen, who was the
17 deputy head of the mission.
18 Q. Your report, the report which is marked as
19 Exhibit 926, was it accepted by your organisation as a
20 credible and reliable report?
21 A. Yes.
22 MR. SCOTT: No further questions, Your
23 Honour.
24 JUDGE MAY: Judge Robinson?
25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. McLeod, I just wanted to
1 follow up on the whole question of the method of
2 preparing your report. You took notes --
3 A. Yes.
4 JUDGE ROBINSON: -- during the meetings?
5 A. Yes.
6 JUDGE MAY: You returned to your
7 headquarters?
8 A. Yes.
9 JUDGE ROBINSON: And you wrote your report?
10 A. Yes.
11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Before you wrote the report,
12 did you discuss your findings with your superiors?
13 A. What I did was I wrote a draft of the
14 report. The actual report itself being just the one
15 page at the front, I drafted it and then circulated
16 that draft to Mr. Andersen who was the deputy head of
17 the mission on the political side and the political
18 advisor and I think also to the military -- the chief
19 of staff who had been a Canadian and said, "This is
20 what I think." It was looked at, and in practice, it
21 was turned down slightly because they thought I was
22 being slightly too strong in some of my views. They
23 thought, by the time they had finished with it, that
24 was an acceptable, balanced report.
25 JUDGE ROBINSON: In some cases, changes would
1 have been made to what you originally prepared?
2 A. Just to the one page at the front. Nobody
3 changed anything that I had written in terms of my
4 write-up of the original notes that I had written
5 during the meetings. I simply sat with my
6 contemporaneous notes and basically copy-typed them so
7 that I would have as close as possible --
8 JUDGE ROBINSON: In particular, the
9 conclusions that you arrived at, would those have been
10 discussed with your authorities?
11 A. Definitely. It was exactly the conclusions
12 which they looked at and they then agreed were
13 acceptable as conclusions.
14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.
15 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Sayers?
16 Cross-examined by Mr. Sayers:
17 Q. Mr. McLeod, your objective was to meet with
18 the leading members of the political and military
19 leadership of the three cities or towns that you
20 visited; right?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. What was the name of the political leader in
23 Zenica on the Croat side that you met?
24 A. I didn't meet a political leader on the Croat
25 side but I met a couple of Catholic priests who were
1 the effective leaders of the Croatian population.
2 Q. What was the name of the --
3 THE INTERPRETER: Could we ask counsel to
4 slow down, please?
5 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Sayers, can you remember that
6 this has to be interpreted? Could you take it slowly?
7 Mr. McLeod, also if you would allow a pause before
8 answering and a pause, Mr. Sayers, before the
9 questioning.
10 MR. SAYERS: Absolutely, Your Honour.
11 Q. You did not meet any military leaders on the
12 Croat side in Zenica either, did you?
13 A. No.
14 Q. You didn't meet any political leaders in
15 Busovaca, did you, sir?
16 A. No. I had been hoping to meet Mr. Kordic,
17 and I ran out of time, unfortunately.
18 Q. But you didn't meet any political leaders,
19 did you?
20 A. No.
21 Q. And you didn't meet any military leaders in
22 Busovaca either, did you? "Yes" or "No."
23 A. Let's make sure we get it right. No. They
24 were all policemen.
25 Q. Now, the three stories or three versions of
1 the Croat story that you've related to Judge May in
2 response to his question, could you just point out to
3 me in exhibit F where they appear during your meeting
4 with Mr. Santic and Mr. Skopljak, because I could not
5 see them in that version of your report, sir.
6 A. You're referring to the three versions of
7 whether it was a Croatian attack, a Serb attack, or a
8 Serb --
9 Q. Yes.
10 A. That's my summary of the three versions of
11 the story which I was being told by all the various
12 parties.
13 Q. I see.
14 A. We can, if you like, find the references to
15 either some extremists or a Muslim attack. I think the
16 third version was self-evidently the version being
17 given by various other people. We can go through it
18 line by line if you'd like.
19 Q. We will do that, but you would concede, would
20 you not, that in your notes of your interviews with
21 Mr. Santic and Mr. Skopljak and in your interview with
22 Colonel Blaskic, there isn't any reference to a story
23 about a Serbian agent provacateur, as you put it, is
24 there?
25 A. Well, we can check, but I'm fairly certain
1 that that was one of the stories which was being put
2 about. I'm quite certain of that.
3 Q. That's not the question, sir. Does it appear
4 in your notes? You've read your notes, haven't you, to
5 prepare for your testimony today?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. You know that it's not in there, don't you?
8 A. Well, if it's not, I'll take your word for
9 it, sir, but I'm quite sure that that was one of the
10 stories which was being put about.
11 Q. Can you think of any reason why you would
12 omit something like that from your notes?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Well, you were sent down to the Lasva Valley
15 at the age of 30; right?
16 A. That's correct.
17 Q. Your objective was to gather all of the facts
18 in order to come up with a neutral, impartial
19 conclusion; right?
20 A. To gather as many of the facts that I could
21 given the time that was available and the people that
22 were available to see me, but, yes, that was the
23 objective.
24 Q. Let me just check off some names of ECMM
25 monitors who were actually present and had been for
1 some time, sir, in the Lasva Valley region. Eric
2 Friis-Pedersen had been stationed there for some
3 months, number of months, had he not?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Henk Morsink too?
6 A. I don't remember him as an individual but --
7 Q. How about Jeremy Fleming?
8 A. Yes, he was there.
9 Q. Did you meet with him at all during your
10 whirlwind tour through the Lasva Valley?
11 JUDGE MAY: Too quick.
12 MR. SAYERS: I'll do my best, Your Honour,
13 to restrain and reign myself in.
14 JUDGE MAY: Could you keep an eye on the
15 LiveNote reporter to make sure that it's not too
16 quick?
17 MR. SAYERS: I will.
18 JUDGE MAY: I wonder if somebody in the
19 Defence team will undertake to listen to the
20 translation. Keep an eye on how -- or an ear on how
21 the interpreters are doing, and keep control of
22 Mr. Sayers.
23 MR. SAYERS: I'll do my best at
24 self-restraint but I will definitely rely on my
25 colleagues to reign me in if I get out of control, Your
1 Honour. My apologies.
2 JUDGE MAY: Let us keep going.
3 MR. SAYERS: Jeremy Fleming was the chairman
4 of something called the Busovaca joint coordination
5 commission; wasn't he?
6 A. The Busovaca joint commission, but yes.
7 Q. Did you ever talk to Mr. Fleming during your
8 tour through the Lasva Valley?
9 A. I'm not sure that I spoke to him while I was
10 there on that occasion, but I certainly did talk to him
11 on a fairly regular basis, yes.
12 Q. That wasn't the question. Did you talk to
13 him during your tour through the Lasva Valley?
14 A. I can't remember whether Jeremy was actually
15 in the theatre at that point.
16 Q. How about Mr. Torbjorn Junhov? Did you speak
17 to him when you were in the Lasva Valley?
18 A. As an individual, I can't remember whether he
19 was one of the monitors who was there at the time.
20 Q. Dieter Schelschmidt?
21 A. Again, I suspect you're going to run through
22 a list of all the monitors who were there. The two key
23 names that I can remember were Eric Friis-Pedersen,
24 because he was there with me most of the time, and
25 Jean-Pierre Thebault because he was there with me some
1 of the time and he was the boss.
2 Q. You've testified in Blaskic for a number of
3 days; right?
4 A. Correct.
5 Q. And in the Aleksovski case; right?
6 A. Correct.
7 Q. And you've got the experience of a prosecutor
8 court martial yourself, don't you?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. You're familiar with the process of questions
11 and answers in cross-examination; right?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. As I understand it, you travelled to the area
14 on May the 3rd?
15 A. Correct.
16 Q. You spent May the 7th through the 11th
17 interviewing people?
18 A. Correct.
19 Q. Then headed back to Zagreb?
20 A. Correct.
21 Q. You wrote your one-page report on May the
22 15th?
23 A. It was probably written on the 14th and
24 discussed but published on the 15th.
25 Q. All right. You'd spent the Christmas of 1992
1 at the headquarters of General Morillon in Kiseljak; is
2 that right?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. You spent about a month in Kiseljak, did you
5 not?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Drove occasionally up the road through
8 Busovaca to Zenica from Kiseljak?
9 A. Once rather than occasionally, but yes.
10 Q. You passed through the Muslim checkpoint at
11 Kacuni and Bilalovac?
12 A. I'm not aware that I was stopped at any
13 point. I might have to check a map to find out exactly
14 where the places are that you're referring to, but if
15 there were checkpoints there, yes, I would have driven
16 through them.
17 Q. Did you ever meet Mr. Kordic during that
18 one-month sojourn?
19 A. No.
20 Q. Did you ever meet Mr. Maric, Zoran Maric,
21 from Busovaca?
22 A. No.
23 Q. Did you ever meet Mr. Ivica Rajic from
24 Kiseljak?
25 A. No.
1 Q. What was the Croatian Community of
2 Herceg-Bosna, do you know?
3 A. Could you -- forgive me. The Croatian
4 Community, could you give me that in terms of HDZ? Is
5 that what you're referring to or just more broadly the
6 Croatian population?
7 Q. Do you know what the Croatian Community of
8 Herceg-Bosna is?
9 A. I'll be very simple: No, because I'm not
10 quite sure what your question is.
11 Q. Do you know what the HDZ is?
12 A. Well, the HDZ, my understanding is that it's
13 the political party which represented the majority of
14 Croats in that area. So I would call it HDZ rather
15 than the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna.
16 Q. All right. Do you know what the HVO is?
17 A. I'll slow down. The HVO is or was the
18 Croatian military formation in Bosnia.
19 Q. Do you know who the president of the HVO was
20 at the time that you were travelling through the Lasva
21 Valley during mid May of 1993?
22 A. No.
23 MR. SAYERS: With the Court's permission, I'd
24 just like to show the witness an extract from the
25 Official Gazette of the Croatian Community of
1 Herceg-Bosna which I've shared with the Prosecution.
2 THE REGISTRAR: Document is marked D20/1.
3 MR. SAYERS:
4 Q. Just one question about this document. This
5 is a copy of a decree published in the Official Gazette
6 of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna in March of
7 1993. The decree is actually dated the 26th of
8 February, 1993, and I'd just like you to turn to the
9 third page.
10 Do you recognise the name Jadranko Prlic as
11 the president of the HVO HZ-HB?
12 A. That's what it says, yes.
13 Q. You're hearing that name for the first time
14 today, I take it, sir?
15 A. I honestly can't remember, sir.
16 Q. You've never met Dr. Jadranko Prlic, I take
17 it?
18 A. No.
19 Q. You've never asked for permission to meet him
20 from anyone who has the power to arrange such a
21 meeting?
22 A. No.
23 Q. Let us turn a little bit to your report,
24 sir. As I understand it, the first thing that you did
25 was to assemble all of the papers that you would need
1 to basically provide yourself with a background of the
2 task before you.
3 A. That is correct.
4 Q. The first thing that you did was to acquire
5 copies of the European Community Monitoring Mission
6 reports?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. They're in a daily report format, aren't
9 they?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. They don't look like exhibit R to your
12 report, do they, at all?
13 A. The reports were based -- they were typed
14 on -- we had a system called capsat. It's a computer
15 which would fire off reports using satellites. So they
16 came in a number of various different forms, but I'm
17 sure you have one there for us to look at anyway.
18 Q. You would agree with me that the summary of
19 reports that you put in as exhibit R, those are just
20 snippets, little extracts, from much more lengthy
21 reports that the ECMM prepared every day; right?
22 A. That's correct. I was attempting just to
23 summarise the key events and locations rather than
24 actually copying complete reports which contained all
25 sorts of information.
1 Q. So rather than attaching those reports to
2 your -- or the ECMM daily reports to your report, what
3 you did was you went through and took out little
4 snippets of reports from various dates yourself?
5 A. That is correct.
6 MR. SAYERS: Your Honour, I'd just like to
7 point out that we've actually made a request to the
8 Prosecution for full copies of those reports and that
9 request has been declined.
10 Q. The second source of documents that you
11 looked at, sir, I believe, was UNPROFOR reports. Is
12 that what you said?
13 A. That's correct.
14 Q. Those are kept in what kind of a format?
15 A. Again, those were -- the copies that I had
16 were paper reports produced in a standard military
17 situation report format, and I was going through those,
18 attempting to find the relevant and key information and
19 just identifying what had happened and where it had
20 happened.
21 Q. So you were provided with a series of
22 situation reports, daily sit-reps, from the military
23 authorities in the area?
24 A. Yes. Those are shared with ECMM, in any
25 case.
1 Q. Who gave you those?
2 A. From memory, I think that I was using both
3 those which ECMM had and possibly some that were
4 provided by BritBat, but I can't quite remember.
5 Q. Now, the British regiment that was present in
6 Vitez was the 1st Cheshire regiment, I believe?
7 A. I think that's correct, yes.
8 Q. Have you ever seen a document called a
9 military information summary or a milinfosum, for
10 short?
11 A. I should think so, yes.
12 Q. Were you ever given any milinfosums by the
13 1st Cheshire Regiment?
14 A. Yes, I think so. I can't remember whether
15 they were milinfosums or just the sit-reps, but I was
16 given their summary of what was going on.
17 Q. I take it that in compiling exhibit R or
18 appendix R to your report, you've deployed the same
19 technique of taking snippets out of the sit-reps and
20 the milinfosums?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. You didn't put the full reports in here?
23 A. No.
24 MR. SAYERS: In addition, Your Honour, we
25 requested those too and those requests have been
1 declined.
2 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Sayers, it's now 11.00. Is
3 that a convenient moment for a break?
4 MR. SAYERS: Absolutely.
5 JUDGE MAY: We will adjourn. Today we'll
6 take a 25-minute break. So 11.25, please.
7 --- Recess taken at 11.00 a.m.
8 --- On resuming at 11.29 a.m.
9 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Sayers, we'll go on. If
10 possible, we would wish to complete this
11 cross-examination today, from the point of view of the
12 convenience of the witness, although he's apparently
13 been informed that he may have to come back but, also,
14 from the point of view of the trial itself, that we can
15 contain this evidence, as it were, in one day. It's
16 much easier to manage.
17 MR. SAYERS: I'm very mindful of the Court's
18 frustration with the apparently discussive nature of
19 the questioning regarding general background witnesses,
20 and I'll try to keep my questions harnessed directly to
21 this witness's direct-examination.
22 JUDGE MAY: And if you could have in mind
23 everybody else in the trial besides the questions and
24 answers.
25 MR. SAYERS: My deepest apologies to the
1 people in the translation booth, and I'll try to keep
2 it slow.
3 Q. Mr. McLeod, I was intrigued by a comment that
4 you made just a few minutes ago that you only had
5 limited time available to do this report. Are you
6 telling the Trial Chamber that there was a time limit
7 placed upon you in preparing this report?
8 A. That's correct.
9 Q. Because of that time limit, you didn't take
10 the trouble to arrange a meeting with Mr. Kordic?
11 A. Because I ran out of time in terms of the
12 amount of time that I had been given. He was the last
13 person that I was hoping to see and, unfortunately, I
14 didn't get to see him.
15 Q. The time limit given by whom?
16 A. The headquarters at ECMM had said that I
17 should go down for about a week, do as much as I could
18 and come back and write a report. So that's what I
19 did.
20 Q. You came back and wrote the report without
21 interviewing the person that you would now like to
22 believe is the man calling the shots in Busovaca or
23 Central Bosnia?
24 A. That is correct.
25 Q. What efforts did you make to try to arrange
1 an appointment with Mr. Kordic?
2 A. In practice, we didn't make any attempts at
3 all to talk to him, although we had been intending to
4 talk to him right at the end of the visit.
5 Q. Did you pick up the telephone and call him?
6 A. No.
7 Q. Did you write him a letter asking to see him?
8 A. No.
9 Q. Did you ask Ambassador Thebault to give him a
10 call on the telephone to try to arrange an
11 appointment?
12 MR. SCOTT: Excuse me, Your Honour, I haven't
13 objected, but the question has been answered
14 categorically "No," and if we want to move on, I think
15 we can do so faster without asking the same question
16 four or five times.
17 JUDGE MAY: Yes. I think we have the point
18 that the witness did not meet Mr. Kordic, and I don't
19 think we can take it much further.
20 MR. SAYERS: There's only one issue that I
21 would like -- one question that I would like to ask,
22 with the Court's permission, and that is whether he
23 ever tried to arrange an appointment with Mr. Kordic.
24 A. The answer is no.
25 Q. Let me move on. Did you receive any written
1 briefing materials from the European Community
2 Monitoring Mission?
3 A. Yes. As I've already described, I read all
4 of their reports.
5 Q. With the Trial Chamber's permission, I'd just
6 like to ask the witness whether he reviewed a report
7 entitled "Introduction Brief for New ECMM Monitors,"
8 dated February 25th, 1993.
9 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
10 MR. SAYERS: Thank you. I have copies for
11 everyone. I think there are enough here. Thank you.
12 THE REGISTRAR: Document is marked D21/1.
13 MR. SAYERS:
14 Q. Just one question about this document, sir.
15 If you could turn to page 6, there's a reference here
16 to "A new formation of Muslim forces which accept only
17 Islamic soldiers from Bosnia and abroad, assessed as
18 being under 200 strong." That's paragraph 35.
19 Did you receive, prior to your visit to the
20 central Lasva Valley, any information regarding this
21 formation? Is that a "No"?
22 A. Sorry. No.
23 Q. Have you ever heard of the 7th Muslim
24 Brigade?
25 A. I've certainly heard of the 7th Muslim
1 Brigade. I hadn't heard of them categorised as the
2 Muslim forces army, which is what you're referring to
3 in your question.
4 Q. Have you ever heard of the MOS?
5 A. Yes. I wouldn't want to, at this point, try
6 to remember exactly what "MOS" stood for.
7 Q. Now, before you began to meet with the people
8 that you saw in the central Lasva Valley, did you take
9 the time to take a look at the mutual agreements that
10 had been signed between the HVO forces and the forces
11 of the ABiH in February of 1993?
12 A. I think I probably would have seen them, yes.
13 Q. All right. Let me ask the usher to show you
14 this document, which is -- all of these documents, by
15 the way, Your Honour, have been provided to the
16 Prosecution in advance.
17 THE REGISTRAR: Document D22/1.
18 MR. SAYERS:
19 Q. If you would just take a look at this
20 exhibit, Mr. McLeod, this consists of a series of
21 orders jointly signed by Colonel Blaskic and Enver
22 Hadzihasanovic, the commander of the 3rd Corps.
23 Incidentally, the headquarters of the 3rd Corps was in
24 Zenica; is that correct?
25 A. Yes, I believe it was.
1 Q. Just one question about this document. Have
2 you seen these orders before?
3 A. I'm not sure. It's quite probable that I
4 did, but looking at the distribution list on the front
5 page, it's not clear it came to me.
6 Q. The top distribution line says "HQ ECMM,"
7 doesn't it?
8 A. Yes. For the chief of operations.
9 Q. Just two pages from the back of this series
10 of documents there's an order that relates to the
11 filling in of trenches and bunkers, dated February the
12 13th, 1993. Were you aware that the HVO and the ABiH
13 had agreed to fill in trenches and bunkers in February
14 of the year in which you visited the central Lasva
15 Valley?
16 A. Yes, because there had been a conflict in
17 January, as a result of which the Busovaca joint
18 commission was first established, and without
19 actually -- I don't think I've seen these orders
20 before, but clearly what it was doing was trying to
21 stabilise the situation and go through a series of
22 confidence-building measures, as they were called,
23 which would include filling in trenches and bunkers.
24 Q. Just another question relating to the
25 Busovaca joint coordination commission. Did you ever
1 see the charter of that particular organisation?
2 A. Possibly but I can't remember.
3 Q. Let me show you another document that we
4 would like to have marked as an exhibit.
5 THE REGISTRAR: The document is marked
6 D23/1.
7 MR. SAYERS:
8 Q. This is a document that's apparently authored
9 by Colonel Stewart in March of 1993, and if you take a
10 look at the last page, it sets up the reporting
11 structure, if you like, the chain of command for the
12 joint coordination commission in Busovaca. The
13 commanding officer, obviously, was from BritBat, and I
14 take it that was Colonel Stewart; correct?
15 A. Yes. I would assume so, yes.
16 Q. The ECMM chairman, who would that be, sir?
17 A. I imagine that would be Jean-Pierre Thebault.
18 Q. All right. The other two individuals would
19 be the commander of the 3rd Corps, General Enver
20 Hadzihasanovic; correct?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. And the commander of the HVO, central
23 command, and I believe that you have previously
24 testified that was Colonel Blaskic?
25 A. Then Colonel Blaskic, yes.
1 Q. By the way, you don't actually speak Croatian
2 or you didn't at the time that you were in the central
3 Lasva Valley, did you?
4 A. Not fluently, no.
5 Q. Would you describe yourself as an expert in
6 German?
7 A. I have a degree in the language, yes.
8 Q. An expert in German, though, the language?
9 A. It depends what you're going to ask me. I
10 think that probably the answer is yes.
11 Q. Who was the commander of the -- the second
12 level of command, the command group, Busovaca joint
13 commission? Do you know anything about that?
14 A. I'm not sure who the individuals would have
15 been. No.
16 Q. What effort did you make to find out about
17 this joint body consisting of representatives of the
18 British army, the organisation for which you worked,
19 and the two opposing sides, the Croats and the Muslims?
20 A. I think it would be fair to say that I was
21 thoroughly aware of what was going on. I was
22 completely aware of the fact that the joint commission
23 was sitting and would see on a daily basis the results
24 of what their actions were being reported up through
25 the daily sit-reps.
1 Q. So the documents that you actually reviewed
2 as you were coming up to speed to give yourself the
3 background necessary to reach conclusions included a
4 variety of reports generated by the joint coordination
5 commission through the sit-reps and milinfosums?
6 A. That's correct.
7 Q. So you were aware that in February and March
8 of 1993, bodies existed upon which both Croats and
9 Muslims sat trying to diffuse the tension, so to speak,
10 presided over by British military forces and also the
11 organisation for which you worked?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. All right. Now, on May the 4th, you have
14 testified that you arrived in Vitez; right?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. And you met with Colonel Stewart at that
17 time?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Jean-Pierre Thebault was there as well?
20 A. Correct.
21 Q. Along with Thomas Osorio?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. An ECMM monitor; right?
24 A. He was not an ECMM monitor.
25 Q. What was he?
1 A. He was -- I can't remember his exact title
2 now. He was a civil rights investigator or an
3 investigator of war crimes. I'm sure you know exactly
4 what his precise title was. I can't remember
5 precisely.
6 Q. There was another individual present in your
7 entourage by the name of Payan Akhavan, I believe.
8 A. Correct.
9 Q. What was his job?
10 A. I believe that he was a colleague of Thomas
11 Osorio.
12 Q. Did those two gentleman arrive by
13 happenstance or was that meeting prearranged, that they
14 should be there as well you?
15 A. I understand that they had arranged with Bob
16 Stewart to be there. I think the happenstance, if you
17 like, was that I was there at the same time.
18 Q. How about the TV crew that was there? Was
19 that a happenstance too or was that prearranged?
20 A. I think that that had been arranged between
21 the TV crew and BritBat, but it was certainly nothing
22 to do with me.
23 Q. Now, the International Criminal Tribunal,
24 wasn't that established in May of 1993?
25 A. I have to admit that I have no idea when it
1 was established.
2 JUDGE MAY: One moment. Mr. Sayers, you're
3 not allowing time for the interpretation.
4 MR. SAYERS: I have a note to myself to be
5 slow here, Your Honour, and I am going to abide by that
6 note.
7 Q. On May the 5th, Mr. McLeod, do I take it that
8 you spent your time collating and studying the reports
9 that you had assembled?
10 A. That is correct.
11 Q. All right. Amongst the papers that you
12 assembled to review, did you review an agreement dated
13 April the 20th, 1993 following a meeting held in Zenica
14 between General Morillon, Mr. Thebault, and actually
15 signed by Sefer Halilovic of the ABiH, and General
16 Petkovic, the HVO commander in chief? I'll give you a
17 copy, if I may.
18 THE REGISTRAR: Number D24/1.
19 MR. SAYERS:
20 Q. Just a few brief questions about this
21 document. First, have you seen it before?
22 A. I think I probably have.
23 Q. Did you have any observations with respect to
24 the first paragraph of this agreement, that the BiH
25 army and HVO are both legal military forces of the
1 Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and are treated equally?
2 A. I'm not sure what you're asking me to comment
3 on.
4 Q. Did you ever hear, during your brief sojourn
5 in the Lasva Valley, contentions to the effect that
6 somehow the HVO was not a legal entity or organisation?
7 A. No.
8 Q. Did you understand that there was a division
9 in the HVO between the civil side and the military
10 side?
11 A. As far as I was aware, the HVO was a military
12 organisation and the HDZ would be the political
13 organisation, if you like.
14 Q. Okay. Turning to the next day that you spent
15 in the central Lasva Valley, May the 6th, I take it
16 that your process of assimilating the written
17 information continued during that day. You didn't
18 actually meet with anybody during that day?
19 A. That is correct.
20 Q. All right. Turning to May the 7th, I
21 understand that you had four meetings on that day: The
22 first with the mayor of Zenica, a man by the name of
23 Besim Spahic; the second with a Catholic priest in
24 Zenica, Father Stjepan; the third with the head of the
25 International Red Cross Committee in Zenica; and then
1 the fourth with the commander of the 3rd Corps in
2 Zenica, General Hadzihasanovic; right?
3 A. That is correct.
4 Q. Do you know the name of the interpreter that
5 you used during those meetings, sir?
6 A. No.
7 Q. In your meeting with Mr. Spahic, the mayor,
8 there was also a press officer present, wasn't there?
9 A. Yes, I believe so.
10 Q. Now, Mr. Spahic told you that the problems,
11 to use the word that you use in annex A of your report,
12 the problems had started on April the 16th?
13 A. That is correct.
14 Q. Did you know anything about a situation in
15 which 13 Croats had been killed in the village of
16 Dusina in January of 1993 and 30 people arrested as
17 well?
18 A. I'm sure that I was aware of it, but at this
19 stage, I'm not sure I have a note which would suggest
20 exactly to prove that I was aware of it, but I probably
21 was aware of it.
22 Q. All right. Just going over your meeting with
23 Mr. Spahic, he acknowledged to you that Croat houses
24 had been burned, didn't he?
25 A. That is correct.
1 Q. Croats had been evicted from their
2 residences?
3 A. That is correct.
4 Q. Croats had been arrested en masse; right?
5 A. Allowing the pause before I answer. Yes,
6 that is correct.
7 Q. He gave you some documents that you actually
8 appended --
9 JUDGE BENNOUNA: (Interpretation) Mr. Sayers,
10 you asked the witness to confirm that Croats had been
11 arrested en masse, arrested, evicted from their homes
12 and so on. Could we know from the witness or from you
13 yourself at what time and in what locality that
14 happened?
15 MR. SAYERS: Yes, indeed, Judge Bennouna.
16 I'll address that question immediately.
17 Q. Amongst the briefing materials that you
18 assembled for yourself, did you actually take a look at
19 a report, a special report on Croats in Zenica, dated
20 April 20 to 21, 1993? I have a copy of that for the
21 Court, and for you and the other side, and co-counsel.
22 THE REGISTRAR: Document D25/1.
23 MR. SAYERS:
24 Q. A few questions, Mr. McLeod, on this
25 document. Have you seen it before?
1 A. Since I'm on the distribution list, I'm sure
2 I've seen it.
3 Q. This was one of the documents that you had
4 available to you as you were conducting your
5 inquiries?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. You had been informed that about 200
8 Croats -- about 200 Croats had been arrested, half
9 military, half civilian, as you can see, and about 30
10 showed signs of brutality; right?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. There's a reference in the first paragraph,
13 right at the end of it, to possible detention centres,
14 one of which is the music -- it says "cool" but it
15 should be school; right?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. You had heard about the music school before,
18 had you not?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. You never actually visited the music school,
21 did you, sir?
22 A. No.
23 Q. That was a detention facility of a special
24 force, a special unit of the ABiH, the 7th Muslim
25 Brigade, wasn't it?
1 A. In light of everything else that I heard
2 then, yes, I think that it probably was. At the time,
3 I'm not sure that it was.
4 Q. All right. You had doubt in your mind at
5 this time what it was?
6 A. I understood that there was a detention
7 centre in the music school. I'm not sure at this time
8 that I knew who was controlling it.
9 Q. All right. The second paragraph goes on to
10 detail the houses that had been burned, Croat houses,
11 that is, in numerous villages, and I won't recite them
12 because the document says what it says. These houses
13 had all been burned actually shortly before or in the
14 weeks before the date that this report was actually
15 prepared; isn't that correct?
16 A. I'm not sure if it's clear when actually it
17 happened and, therefore, I'm not sure if it would be in
18 the weeks before or just the days before, but certainly
19 they had been burnt, yes.
20 Q. Recently, you would agree with that?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. You knew that HVO soldiers who wanted to
23 return to their villages that had been burned down,
24 plundered, and so forth were free to do so, provided
25 they turned in their weapons; right?
1 A. That was my understanding of what was -- I
2 don't know if it was being agreed, but that was what
3 people were trying to do.
4 Q. Thank you. Now, you gave some testimony
5 about 2.000 or so Croats who had been turned out of
6 Zenica, and you gave or at least you reported in your
7 report that this was an elaborate ruse on the part of
8 the Croats, somehow to come up with an excuse for the
9 attack on Vitez. Do you remember that in your report?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Which of these 2.000 Croats did you talk to
12 to verify that, any of them?
13 A. I spoke to the -- as you're aware, I spoke to
14 the religious Catholic priests who were there in
15 Zenica, and they were some of the people who gave me
16 the impression which I formed which I then wrote down
17 in my report.
18 Q. But to get back to my question, you didn't
19 speak to a single one of these refugees, did you?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Now, there's another fellow by the name of
22 Sakic who's referred to in your report as the president
23 of the HDZ in Zenica?
24 A. Santic.
25 Q. Sakic. Take a look at annex A of your
1 report, sir, page A1.
2 A. I'm with you, yes. Yes, I'm with you.
3 Q. All right. Now, this was Mr. Dominik Sakic,
4 right, or did you know?
5 A. I think what I'm doing here is simply writing
6 down what I was being told. I'm not sure that I
7 actually checked it.
8 Q. Right. So you just recorded what you had
9 been told by the Muslim mayor of Zenica?
10 A. That's correct.
11 Q. You didn't ask to see, I take it, Mr. Sakic,
12 who was the political leader of the Croatian Community
13 in Zenica?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Even though you knew his name?
16 A. That's correct.
17 Q. All right. On the second page, page A2, you
18 record here that mister -- on the second page, you
19 record that supposedly Mr. Sakic had asked the mayor,
20 Mr. Spahic, to arrest him?
21 A. That's what I was told. I have no idea
22 whether it was true or not. I was simply writing down
23 what I was being told.
24 Q. All right. Mayor Spahic told you about Croat
25 houses being set on fire, did he not?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And various villages, a variety of them, and
3 they are all listed in your report; right?
4 A. That's correct.
5 Q. All right. The next meeting that you had was
6 with Father Stjepan; right?
7 A. That's correct.
8 Q. That is in exhibit or appendix B to your
9 report or annex B; right?
10 A. Correct.
11 Q. If I could just ask you to turn back to page
12 A1-1, I just have a couple of questions about this
13 document. This was one of the documents you were given
14 by Mayor Spahic; correct?
15 A. Correct.
16 Q. Now, paragraph 3 refers to a Mr. Zivko
17 Totic. Did you know that Mr. Zivko Totic was a local
18 HVO military commander who had been kidnapped on April
19 the 15th, 1993?
20 JUDGE BENNOUNA: Excuse me, Mr. Sayers.
21 Which paragraph, which page? I am a little bit lost.
22 MR. SAYERS: I hope we all have the same
23 documents, but as I understand it, Judge Bennouna --
24 JUDGE BENNOUNA: Annex B?
25 MR. SAYERS: It's annex A1-1, and I'm
1 actually referring to the third paragraph down. It's
2 in the middle of the page.
3 JUDGE BENNOUNA: Which paragraph?
4 MR. SAYERS: Paragraph 3, Your Honour:
5 "Civil police authorities have to do their
6 best to investigate the crimes committed within the
7 last three days to find out who did these crimes and to
8 enable Mr. Zivko Totic to be released."
9 Are you with me?
10 JUDGE ROBINSON: What page number?
11 MR. SAYERS: Page A1-1.
12 JUDGE MAY: The one at the bottom.
13 MR. SAYERS: The one I have on the bottom of
14 my version, Your Honour, is 020186.
15 JUDGE MAY: We will have to start at the
16 beginning.
17 MR. NICE: It's 00417621.
18 MR. SAYERS: Sorry, Your Honours.
19 Q. Do you have the document before you?
20 A. Yes, I do.
21 Q. Who is Mr. Totic?
22 A. I don't know who Mr. Totic is, but from the
23 description that you just gave, then I assume that he
24 is one of the HVO officers who were kidnapped as
25 reported by, I think, probably ECMM on the 15th of
1 April.
2 Q. Did you know that his three bodyguards that
3 evening, April the 15th, 1993, had been assassinated in
4 a hail of gunfire in Zenica?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Did you know that these gentleman had been --
7 or Mr. Totic was apprehended by supposedly Mujahedin of
8 the 7th Muslim Brigade?
9 A. I don't think I was aware of that detail.
10 Q. Did you ever see a copy of the ransom note or
11 the exchange note, the demand note, that had been
12 provided to the ECMM by the Mujahedin?
13 A. Possibly, but if you would show me, I would
14 be happy to refresh my memory.
15 Q. I'd be happy to do that.
16 THE REGISTRAR: Document D26/1.
17 MR. SAYERS:
18 Q. Just one brief question on this, Mr. McLeod.
19 Have you ever seen this handwritten note before?
20 A. I'm not sure. Possibly, but I'm not sure.
21 Q. You actually heard, though, that a request
22 had been made by the Mujahedin to exchange Mr. Totic
23 and others for foreign prisoners being held by the HVO,
24 all from different countries; is that right?
25 A. Yes, I think so.
1 Q. All right. Now, could we go to exhibit or
2 annex B to your report that chronicles your meeting
3 with Father Stjepan?
4 Now, just a few things on this, Mr. McLeod.
5 One of the first things that Father Stjepan complained
6 about to you was that 21 people were missing and not
7 actually in gaol. He believed that they were in the
8 music school or with the 7th Muslim Brigade.
9 A. That is correct.
10 Q. What effort did you undertake to find out
11 what this 7th Muslim Brigade actually was?
12 A. As you will see two interviews further down
13 with Jean-Pierre Thebault, we went to speak to
14 Mr. Hadzihasanovic, who was the commander of the 3rd
15 Brigade, and Jean-Pierre made a fairly strong demarche
16 to him, suggesting that what we had just been told
17 should be investigated and that there should be the
18 possibility of having access to these detention
19 centres.
20 Q. All right. What efforts did you make to find
21 out what this 7th Muslim Brigade was, other than having
22 a talk with General Hadzihasanovic?
23 A. We pressed both Hadzihasanovic and then also,
24 I don't know if it's Dugalic, who was one of his deputy
25 commanders, to provide us access to the facilities,
1 because as far as we could hear, people were being
2 detained and we wanted to try to get access to both
3 sides to see what condition they were in and to secure
4 their release.
5 Q. That would have been fairly important to
6 determine in your investigations and inquiries,
7 wouldn't it?
8 A. Absolutely.
9 Q. And that never happened, did it?
10 A. Well, as you're aware, we got access to
11 Kaonik prison --
12 Q. Mr. McLeod, that wasn't my question. My
13 question was: Did you ever get access to the music
14 school detention facility or find out -- get access to
15 the headquarters of the 7th Muslim Brigade?
16 A. I apologise. No.
17 Q. Father Stjepan complained to you about a
18 massacre of Croats in the village of Miletici, did he
19 not?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. People had had their hands tied behind their
22 back, were shot in the head, and were then burned;
23 right?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And you knew about that?
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. I don't believe that appears anywhere in your
3 one-page report, does it, the report on inter-ethnic
4 violence in Vitez?
5 A. No.
6 Q. All right. Now, Father Stjepan also told you
7 about something called the MOS from the town of Zepce
8 to the north, and these people were more brutal than
9 local people, he told you; right?
10 A. That's correct.
11 Q. What effort did you find out -- what effort
12 did you undertake to determine the identity of these
13 individuals, the MOS?
14 A. None.
15 Q. You told Judge Riad, two years ago in the
16 Blaskic case, that you didn't know what this entity
17 even was; right?
18 A. That's correct.
19 Q. All right. Now, Father Stjepan told you that
20 250 to 260 Croat families had been expelled from their
21 houses; right?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. There's no mention of that in your report
24 either, is there?
25 A. No.
1 Q. That 40 houses had been burned and plundered;
2 right?
3 A. Correct.
4 Q. All belonging to Croats; right?
5 A. Correct.
6 Q. He complained about discrimination against
7 Croats, did he not?
8 A. Correct.
9 Q. You had no reason to disbelieve the
10 complaints being made to you by this Catholic priest,
11 did you, sir?
12 A. None at all.
13 Q. None at all. There's no reference to that
14 anywhere in your report, is there?
15 A. There's no reference to that on the front
16 page of the report, but the full details of what he was
17 saying were contained within the report.
18 Q. In fact, I believe Father Stjepan told you
19 that the MOS consisted of Mujahedin and foreigners who
20 were the most extreme group in Bosnia-Herzegovina and
21 that they were totally out of control; isn't that
22 right?
23 A. I'm not sure. I apologise if it actually
24 says it in my report. I've already said -- yes, on
25 page B2, halfway down, you can see him saying that MOS
1 are not foreigners.
2 Q. All right, sir. You had no reason to
3 disbelieve that, did you?
4 A. Yet again, what I'm doing is just writing
5 down what people are saying to me.
6 Q. All right. But you made -- well, I think
7 you've already answered that question. The next thing
8 that you did is go to see Jean-Luc Novarraz (phoen)
9 from the ICRC later on May the 7th, and that's -- you
10 reproduced a version of what occurred at that meeting
11 in annex C to your report; correct?
12 A. That is correct.
13 Q. You were told that the ICRC only had access
14 to the main prison in Zenica but not to the Ministry of
15 the Interior, the MUP prison, or to the music school;
16 right?
17 A. That is correct.
18 Q. You put a little comment up at the top here
19 saying: "Since access to prisons was a major concern,"
20 you wanted to make sure that what was being done was
21 coordinating it with the ICRC; right?
22 A. That is correct.
23 Q. Now, you were given free access to the Kaonik
24 facility by the Croats; right?
25 A. That is correct.
1 Q. That's the only gaol you visited in your
2 brief tour through the Lasva Valley; right?
3 A. That's correct.
4 Q. You never visited the gaol in Zenica, did
5 you?
6 A. No.
7 Q. Despite knowing that there were about 280
8 prisoners there --
9 JUDGE MAY: Well, I wonder if this is fair to
10 the witness, because the sentence goes on, if you read
11 it: "I said that we were working on access for us and
12 Father Stjepan within the context of the political
13 pressure we were applying." So the witness makes it
14 clear in the document that they were attempting to gain
15 access. I don't know that this is a fair question.
16 MR. SAYERS: All right. That may be, Judge
17 May. So let me just move on.
18 Q. The point being that you didn't actually
19 visit any prisons in Zenica, either open or closed;
20 right?
21 A. Correct.
22 Q. And made no effort to do that?
23 A. I would not agree that I made no effort to do
24 that.
25 Q. What effort did you make to do that?
1 A. I think if you look at the notes of my
2 meetings with Dugalic, that we had said that we wanted
3 access and this had been tentatively agreed as being
4 possible, and then in practice, because of the demarche
5 I made to Dugalic, he arranged for the nine Croat
6 prisoners from the main prison.
7 MR. SAYERS: Suffice it to say you were never
8 given any access to the Muslim prison facilities in
9 Zenica?
10 JUDGE MAY: Can you speak up, please?
11 MR. SAYERS:
12 Q. Suffice it to say you were never given any
13 access to the Muslim prison facilities in Zenica?
14 A. Correct.
15 Q. All right. Now, the next meeting that you
16 had was with General Hadzihasanovic, and that is
17 reported at annex D of your report?
18 A. Correct.
19 Q. Jean-Pierre Thebault was with you; correct?
20 A. It would be more accurate to say that I was
21 with him because he was leading the meeting but, yes,
22 we were together.
23 Q. He was doing all the talking and you were
24 just listening?
25 A. Correct.
1 Q. And writing?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. All right. He was actually the head of the
4 ECMM reporting cell in Zenica, was he not?
5 A. Correct.
6 Q. All right. You raised the subject of access
7 to prisoners with the General; right?
8 A. Correct.
9 Q. And the subject of hostages?
10 A. Correct.
11 Q. Those were Croat hostages; right?
12 A. I would infer it from the note. I can't
13 remember the conversation in detail.
14 Q. Was there any discussion of Mr. Totic who was
15 being detained by Mujahedins at that time?
16 A. At this stage, I can't remember exactly.
17 That was probably the subject of discussion, but I'm
18 not certain.
19 Q. The General told you that he had no knowledge
20 of the music school or the Ministry of the Interior
21 prison, did he not?
22 A. I think he contradicted himself, because as
23 you can see, he claimed to have no knowledge but he
24 then said that access would not be a problem.
25 Q. But he told you that it was best to go
1 slowly, right?
2 A. Correct.
3 Q. And because the 7th Muslim Brigade was not
4 under control?
5 A. That's what he said.
6 Q. There are many elements, he said, who are not
7 controlled. That's not clear to me from your notes.
8 Were you referring to other elements than the
9 7th Muslim Brigade or merely to the 7th Muslim
10 Brigade?
11 A. I'm not sure exactly who he was referring
12 to. I think he was simply saying there were many
13 elements that are not controlled. He could have been
14 referring to anything. At this point I can't be more
15 precise, I'm afraid.
16 Q. Were you able to determine, Mr. McLeod, where
17 the 7th Muslim Brigade fit within the chain of command
18 of the ABiH?
19 A. I think I understood that they were part of 3
20 Corps, although what was being suggested in this
21 meeting was that their connection was fairly
22 tentative.
23 Q. I see. All right. Well, let's turn to the
24 next day, May the 8th.
25 A. You conducted a series of investigations on
1 May the 8th. The first with Father Bozo in the village
2 of Cajdras, right?
3 A. Correct.
4 Q. It's a few kilometres southwest of Zenica?
5 A. Correct.
6 Q. He repeated the same story that you had been
7 told before and had read in ECMM documents that a large
8 number of Croat houses had been burned, large numbers
9 of Croats had been evicted from their houses and chased
10 out of the territory, and that their houses had been
11 plundered and robbed; right?
12 A. Correct.
13 Q. And burned down?
14 A. Correct.
15 Q. Once again, though there's no mention of that
16 in your report, is there, sir?
17 JUDGE MAY: Referring to the report is
18 confusing. This is the report that we're looking at.
19 I take it you mean the summary?
20 MR. SAYERS: Yes, indeed, sir.
21 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
22 MR. SAYERS:
23 Q. Without belabouring that report, Mr. McLeod,
24 this gentleman, Father Bozo, also brought up the 7th
25 Muslim Brigade and the music school detention facility,
1 did he not?
2 A. Yes, he did.
3 Q. And he repeated the concerns that he had
4 about the 21 missing people who were detained there;
5 right?
6 A. Correct.
7 Q. Father Bozo also told you about the MOS
8 making nightly arrests at various villages,
9 slaughtering animals, and performing various other
10 forms of criminal activity, did he not? It's on page
11 E2 in the middle or just above the middle.
12 A. That is correct.
13 Q. All right. The Court can read the tale of
14 burnings for itself. I won't belabour that point. Did
15 you ever become aware of any facts that would suggest
16 that the statistical information or the factual
17 information contained in this report of mass burnings
18 and plunder and so forth, killings, was inaccurate?
19 A. No.
20 Q. All right. Father Bozo actually gave you a
21 letter that he had sent to the commander of the 3rd
22 Corps, and I believe that that is attached to your --
23 to the overall document.
24 A. I think if we call it my report, then that's
25 useful. It's appendix 1 to annex E of my report, yes.
1 Q. On the first page, there's a reference to the
2 7th Muslim Brigade. Do you see that?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And a general complaint about discrimination
5 against Croats in the Zenica area. In fact, that's in
6 bold letters. Do you see that?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. You weren't aware of any facts that led you
9 to believe that there, in fact, was not discrimination
10 against Croats in the Zenica area, were you?
11 A. No.
12 Q. All right. Now, the next meeting that you
13 had was later that day with Ivan Santic, the mayor of
14 Vitez, and Pero Skopljak?
15 A. Correct.
16 Q. Do you know whether Mr. Santic was a member
17 of the HVO?
18 A. At this stage, I can't remember whether he
19 was a member of the HVO or a member of the HDZ.
20 Q. How about Mr. Skopljak? Was he a member of
21 the HVO or not?
22 A. I think he was a member of the civilian
23 police.
24 Q. All right. Did you ever make an attempt to
25 see Dr. Mujezinovic, the Muslim president of the Vitez
1 war presidency?
2 A. No.
3 Q. Did you know that he was actually in Vitez as
4 you were travelling around visiting Mr. Santic and
5 Mr. Skopljak?
6 A. I think I became aware of that, yes.
7 Q. But you made no attempt to see him?
8 A. No.
9 Q. Now, in your notes, sir --
10 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Sayers.
11 MR. SAYERS:
12 Q. In your notes, the notes that you took of
13 your meeting with Mr. Santic and Mr. Skopljak, page 35,
14 specifically, I'd like to refer you to -- there's a
15 reference to Dusina. I don't know if the Trial Chamber
16 actually has these notes. It might make sense to put
17 them on the ELMO. You see the word "Dusina" shortly
18 down from the top of the page?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Do I take it that Mr. Santic and Mr. Skopljak
21 were discussing the subject of the village of Dusina
22 with you?
23 A. Yes. I'm just trying to find the same place
24 in my typed note. Can you assist me? Do you have
25 the --
1 Q. Yes. I don't think you will actually find it
2 in there, but -- I can't actually find it in here,
3 Mr. McLeod, but let me just ask you --
4 A. I'm trying to find the paragraph above it so
5 I can place it in context, if that's all right.
6 Q. I think it's page F2 right at the bottom.
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. You agree that there's no discussion in your
9 notes of the village of Dusina?
10 A. No. On the basis that I've written the word
11 "Dusina," but there's nothing else in my written note
12 to help me, so when I was typing it up, I've missed it
13 out.
14 Q. You recognise Dusina as the village that I
15 alluded to earlier, the village that had been the
16 subject of a massacre of about 13 Croat civilians in
17 January?
18 A. I --
19 JUDGE MAY: What is the purpose of the
20 question?
21 MR. SAYERS: I was just inquiring why that
22 subject had been omitted from the typed version of this
23 report, Your Honour.
24 A. I think the answer is very simple. As you
25 can see in the original note, I've simply written the
1 word "Dusina," and when I was typing it up, because I
2 had nothing other than "Dusina" to prompt my memory,
3 I've taken the typed record of the meeting from the
4 paragraph above here (indicating) and continued there
5 because there was nothing other than just the word
6 "Dusina" to remind me what we've just been talking
7 about.
8 Q. All right. Just one other question regarding
9 your report, page F2. You were told that the Mujahedin
10 from Zenica and the 7th Muslim Brigade had been seen
11 coming down a hill from the village of Vjetrenice;
12 correct?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Do you know whether that was true?
15 A. Again, I have no idea whether it was true or
16 not. I was simply writing the note as he was speaking
17 or as the translator was interpreting for me, and
18 that's what I captured.
19 Q. All right. The next visit that you paid on
20 May the 8th was to Colonel Blaskic?
21 A. Correct.
22 Q. Do you know the system of ranks in the HVO at
23 all?
24 A. Not with detail, no.
25 Q. Do you know whether the term "pukovnik" means
1 lieutenant colonel or whether it means colonel?
2 A. I have no idea.
3 Q. Have you ever heard the term "potpukovnik"?
4 A. I may have done but I certainly can't
5 remember now.
6 Q. All right. As I understand it, you conclude,
7 sir, that the story you were told by Mr. Santic,
8 Mr. Skopljak, and Colonel Blaskic that there was an
9 attack by Muslim forces on the town of Vitez on the
10 16th of April, 1993 was, to use your words, incredible?
11 A. That is correct.
12 Q. Have you ever seen a document entitled "Final
13 Report of the United Nations Commission of Experts
14 Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780
15 of 1992," and specifically annex 3A regarding special
16 forces, the report prepared under the direction of M.
17 Cherif Bassiouni?
18 A. I don't think so.
19 JUDGE MAY: What's the relevance of this
20 document?
21 MR. SAYERS: The relevance is, Your Honour,
22 that this report concludes: "It was reported that a
23 unit of the Mujahedin, the guerilla, participated in
24 the 16th of April, 1993 attack on Vitez and attempted
25 to exchange ten HVO hostages for foreign prisoners held
1 in HVO prisons."
2 JUDGE MAY: What is the date of that report?
3 MR. SAYERS: The date of the report is
4 December the 28th, 1994.
5 JUDGE MAY: You can call evidence about it if
6 you want.
7 Do you know anything about this report,
8 Mr. McLeod?
9 A. No, sir.
10 MR. SAYERS:
11 Q. All right. Did you know that your report,
12 your own report, was cited as one of the sources in --
13 JUDGE MAY: He doesn't know anything about
14 the report, so he can't answer that. Let's move on.
15 MR. SAYERS: If I may, Your Honour --
16 Q. Going back to your meeting with Colonel
17 Blaskic, you saw him as the chief military figure on
18 behalf of the HVO in Central Bosnia, did you not?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. The meeting was relaxed and business-like, as
21 you've recorded?
22 A. That's how I characterised it. Yes.
23 Q. You considered him straightforward and
24 honest?
25 A. Yes. If I can say more than just "Yes" or
1 "No" to help you --
2 Q. No. You can help the Prosecution --
3 JUDGE MAY: No. You can help us. You can
4 conclude your answer. What is it?
5 A. We were having a conversation as to -- as I
6 already said, one serving soldier, one retired soldier,
7 and his description of the military situation and the
8 events which had taken place after the 16th was very
9 straightforward and matched -- was almost word for word
10 the same description that I had had from BritBat who
11 was sitting observing exactly the same events. So from
12 that point of view, it was relaxed, straightforward.
13 He had no difficulty showing me on the map the various
14 things which he wanted to point out to me.
15 MR. SAYERS:
16 Q. You found his assessment of the military
17 situation to be accurate?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. There's no question in your mind that the
20 army of Bosnia-Herzegovina was fully capable of
21 launching an attack in Central Bosnia on the HVO?
22 A. Yes, and to expand on that again, if it's
23 useful, patently they were capable of doing that
24 because they did mount an attack after the 16th. The
25 debate can be whether it was an attack or
1 counter-attack but, de facto, they did amount an attack
2 which was only prevented from, as far as I could see,
3 achieving what Colonel Blaskic thought was the outcome
4 by the intervention of the International Community.
5 Q. Is it your impression or opinion that the
6 village of Ahmici was completely undefended?
7 A. I would imagine that the village of Ahmici
8 was defended up to a point, but whatever defence there
9 was not particularly successful, I think would be
10 how I would characterise it.
11 Q. All right. Were you told that it was
12 undefended at any time?
13 A. I don't think so.
14 Q. None of the British military figures involved
15 told you that this was a completely defenceless,
16 undefended village?
17 A. I can't remember whether anybody actually
18 described it as either defended or undefended.
19 Q. All right. Were you ever shown a statement
20 by a gentleman by the name of Fuad Berbic, which has
21 been entered into evidence in this case as Exhibit
22 D13/2?
23 A. I don't think so.
24 Q. In coming up with your opinion as to who it
25 was who was responsible for Ahmici, would it have
1 helped you to review reports from people who actually
2 were there during the attack or the hostilities?
3 A. I'm sure it would have done.
4 Q. Did you?
5 A. No. I got as close as reports of what they
6 had said as opposed to actually talking to any
7 individuals who were there.
8 Q. So you never actually spoke face to face with
9 anybody who was actually in the village during the
10 evening or morning of April the 15th, 1993?
11 A. No.
12 Q. So everything that you know is second-hand or
13 thirdhand?
14 A. Correct.
15 Q. All right. The final meeting that you had, I
16 believe, on May 8th was the deputy commander of the
17 Kruscica Brigade of the ABiH, another military
18 commander by the name of Huke Halilovic; right?
19 A. Correct.
20 Q. That's exhibit H or annex H. Kruscica is
21 about one kilometre south of Vitez, is it not?
22 A. Yes, south or southwest.
23 Q. Do you know the name of the deputy commander
24 of the Kruscica Brigade who you met on May the 8th?
25 A. I'm not sure I actually wrote his name down.
1 Q. All right. Once again, these gentlemen told
2 you a familiar story, that Croat houses had been burned
3 but by Muslim extremists who were not under military
4 control, to use their words; is that correct?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. All right. Now, on May the 9th, you met with
7 the deputy commander of the 3rd Corps, and this is
8 annex I now, I believe, Mr. Ramiz Dugalic --
9 A. Correct.
10 Q. -- to begin the day. Was there anybody else
11 present at that meeting?
12 A. There was Eric Friis-Pedersen, our
13 interpreter. I can't remember whether there was
14 anybody else on his side.
15 Q. Did they suggest to you any names of people
16 that you might want to see? Don't mention the name,
17 please.
18 A. Yes, I think so.
19 MR. SAYERS: With the Court's permission, I
20 would just like to have a document shown to Mr. McLeod
21 relating to a witness who has testified in private
22 session and just ask him if he recognises this name.
23 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Would you respond for the
24 record, please, Mr. McLeod?
25 A. Certainly. I don't recognise the name.
1 JUDGE MAY: Return it to counsel, please.
2 MR. SCOTT: Could we see it, Your Honour?
3 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let Mr. Scott see it first,
4 please, and then return it to counsel.
5 Yes, Mr. Sayers?
6 MR. SAYERS: I'm trying to move along, Your
7 Honour --
8 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, the Court will know
9 from the days and weeks of trial that we have not
10 objected very much to cross-examination, but this has
11 been a continual process of going through the notes
12 which the information is, in fact, included in the
13 report. This is the report, not simply page 1, and
14 then repeatedly they're indicating, "Well, is it in the
15 summary or not?" There's a fair amount of
16 cross-examination I think we've allowed, but we're not
17 halfway through the document or halfway through the
18 notes, and if we're going to do this page by page,
19 we're going to be here for a very long time. I think
20 if he can make the point straight out to the witness,
21 we'll get there a lot quicker, Your Honour.
22 JUDGE MAY: I agree, but you cannot prevent
23 him highlighting, if he wants to, all the evidence
24 which is favourable to his side.
25 MR. SCOTT: Very well.
1 JUDGE MAY: Then, no doubt, we can rule, if
2 necessary, that you may go through all the items and
3 highlight those favourable to your side. Whether we
4 find it helpful, that is another matter.
5 Yes, Mr. Sayers.
6 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour.
7 MR. SAYERS:
8 Q. Could you turn to page 57 of your handwritten
9 notes and just put those on the ELMO? Unfortunately,
10 they don't really read very well. There are two names
11 at the top of your May the 5th or May the 9th, rather,
12 1993 note regarding the meeting with the imam of
13 Busovaca, and the two names are Ramiz Dugalic, 3rd
14 Corps something. Could you just tell us what that
15 says, please?
16 A. 3rd Corps deputy commander for security, for
17 SIS or security.
18 Q. The second name is -- could you just read
19 that?
20 A. That's Jasmin, 7th Muslim Brigade military
21 police.
22 Q. Did you meet with that gentleman?
23 A. No.
24 Q. Do you know why his name is down there?
25 A. At this stage, I have no idea. No.
1 Certainly, they were not present at the meeting.
2 Q. All right. The second meeting that you had
3 on May the 9th was with Major Brian Watters; is that
4 correct?
5 A. That is correct.
6 Q. You didn't make any notes of that meeting,
7 did you, sir?
8 A. No. We were running through the BritBat
9 reports.
10 Q. All right. You had a long conversation with
11 him though, I take it?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Did he tell you that Dzemo Merdan had ordered
14 the blockade, the ABiH blockade to be erected at the
15 village of Ahmici on October the 20th, 1992, just a few
16 months before?
17 A. I can't remember.
18 Q. You met with Colonel Watters alone, did you
19 not?
20 A. At this stage, I can't remember.
21 Q. All right. Turning to your meeting with the
22 imam, he told you that he had a pass signed by three
23 separate people, dated May the 1st, 1993; is that
24 right?
25 A. That's correct.
1 Q. The first of those names is Dusko Grubesic,
2 the commander of the HVO brigade; correct?
3 A. That's correct.
4 Q. I think you previously acknowledged that you
5 made no effort to contact that gentleman?
6 A. That's correct.
7 Q. The next person was Zoran Maric, who was the
8 president of the HVO in Busovaca?
9 A. Correct.
10 Q. You made no effort to contact him?
11 A. No.
12 Q. Then the third person was Mr. Dario Kordic of
13 the HDZ. Do you remember the subject of the statement
14 "Kordic seems to be the man calling the shots" coming
15 up very extensively in the Blaskic case?
16 A. Certainly because there, amongst other
17 things, was perhaps a mistranslation into one of the
18 versions, so we went round the houses several times on
19 it.
20 Q. In that case, you testified that you have no
21 idea what the phrase means, that you couldn't remember;
22 right? That was on January the 20th, 1998.
23 JUDGE MAY: Which phrase?
24 MR. SAYERS: That Kordic would be the man
25 calling the shots.
1 Q. Do you remember that subject coming up when
2 you were giving that testimony?
3 JUDGE MAY: If you don't remember, say so,
4 Mr. McLeod.
5 A. Well, sir, I have the transcript of that
6 testimony so that I can remind myself of exactly what
7 was said. I do remember the incident.
8 MR. SAYERS:
9 Q. And that's what you said; right?
10 A. Can I remind myself of what I said?
11 Q. Sure.
12 MR. SCOTT: Could we have a page, please,
13 Counsel?
14 MR. SAYERS: Yes. It's page 6455 to 6456 of
15 the Blaskic transcript.
16 Q. You said "Four and a half years on --"
17 A. I think refreshing my memory, the issue
18 where you're asking me whether I have no idea of
19 whether it exists or not, that's me referring to
20 whether that idiom exists within the Bosnian language.
21 Q. You were actually asked, just a few pages
22 earlier on page 6376, "Is that a quote from the imam?"
23 and your response was, "No."
24 A. Yes, because it is -- it's difficult now, six
25 years later, to remember the precise flow of the
1 conversation. I have shown you my contemporaneous
2 note. It's quite clear that that's what I wrote at the
3 time. I believe that that was my summary of where we
4 had got to as opposed to what the imam himself actually
5 said, but I apologise for the fact that at this stage I
6 can't just produce the taperecorder and play the
7 recording back.
8 Q. All right. Your next --
9 JUDGE BENNOUNA: (Interpretation) Mr. Sayers,
10 may I remind you that that was an answer that was
11 already given to the question I asked before to the
12 witness about this very same phrase.
13 MR. SAYERS: I think that's correct, Your
14 Honour.
15 Q. The next meeting that you had was with
16 several police officers in Busovaca; correct?
17 A. That's correct.
18 Q. You were told that a military policeman had
19 been shot the night before by a sniper in Busovaca;
20 right?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. And that there were problems with the MOS in
23 Zenica?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. All right. You were meeting with these
1 people, I take it, sir, because you wanted to find out
2 who was actually in control of the situation in
3 Busovaca?
4 A. Well, in practice this was a slightly
5 impromptu meeting because as was noted on the end of
6 the previous annex, as I was concluding my meeting with
7 the imam, the police arrived at his house. They wanted
8 to talk to me there, and I suggested that perhaps I
9 should accompany them back to the police station and we
10 then had this meeting. So it was not previously
11 arranged, but I was quite content to talk to them
12 because it gave me that opportunity.
13 Q. Wait a minute. Are you sure that the people
14 that came to the imam's door are the same people that
15 you interviewed with?
16 A. They were police -- Croatian police came to
17 the house, and I then accompanied them back and had
18 this meeting.
19 Q. Haven't you previously stated that you're not
20 sure whether the three people that you met with are the
21 three people that came to the imam's door?
22 A. At this stage I simply can't remember the
23 faces, but I don't know. I'm not sure.
24 Q. Okay. Let's try to speed up a little bit
25 here. Going to May the 10th, you had a second meeting
1 with the mayor of Zenica, and that's annex M?
2 A. Correct.
3 Q. There's only one point I'd like to make
4 there. You made a reference there to a letter that had
5 supposedly been sent by Mr. Boban, that is reported to
6 have outlined a case against Muslims; right?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Did you attach that or did you have a copy of
9 it with you?
10 A. I think I may well have had a copy with me at
11 the time that I was talking to him. I didn't have a
12 copy -- I think it was Jean-Pierre Thebault's copy. I
13 didn't have a copy when I was making my report or I
14 would have attached it.
15 Q. Let me show you a document and ask you if
16 this is the copy to which you were referring.
17 THE REGISTRAR: The document is marked
18 D27/1.
19 MR. SAYERS:
20 Q. This is a joint statement signed by Mate
21 Boban and Alija Izetbegovic, dated April the 25th, 1993
22 and communicated to the United Nations Security Council
23 a day later. Is this the document to which you were
24 referring?
25 A. No, I don't think so.
1 Q. Do you actually have in your files a copy of
2 the document to which you were referring which contain
3 the statements supposedly made by Mr. Boban?
4 A. No. As I already said, if I did, then I
5 would have attached it at the back of the report, but
6 when I was creating the report, I didn't have a copy
7 anymore.
8 Q. Now, you met with Mr. Aleksovski, I believe,
9 shortly after a meeting with representatives of the
10 Centre for Human Rights?
11 A. That's correct.
12 Q. The purpose of the Centre for Human Rights
13 was to uncover crimes committed by the HVO in the last
14 year; is that fair to say?
15 A. Yes. I think they were trying to investigate
16 various things that had happened. I'm not sure that I
17 actually saw a copy of their charter, if they had such
18 a thing.
19 Q. If you just take a look at annex N1, that's
20 "N" for "November," of your report, right at the
21 bottom of the page there?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. All right. This centre was not aimed in any
24 way at trying to uncover crimes that Muslims had
25 committed against Croats, was it? It was just a
1 one-way Tribunal, if you like?
2 A. Yes. I was not entirely impressed by some of
3 the information which they were giving me, but again,
4 what I was doing was just writing down exactly what
5 they said and copying any documents which they gave me.
6 Q. All right. Now, during your meeting with
7 Mr. Aleksovski, and I think that you have summarised
8 that at annex O?
9 A. Correct.
10 Q. You saw no signs of any physical injury
11 demonstrated on any of the detainees at that facility,
12 did you?
13 A. No.
14 Q. There were about 79 Muslim detainees at the
15 time that you were there; right?
16 A. Correct.
17 Q. There was no attempt to hide the conditions
18 under which they were interned or to prevent you from
19 speaking with anyone that you wanted to speak to?
20 A. Correct.
21 Q. There were also about 30 Croats gaoled at
22 that time in the military gaol; right?
23 A. I wasn't aware that there were 30 of them. I
24 saw two of them.
25 Q. All right. How long did you spend at this
1 facility?
2 A. I think in my notes or certainly in my
3 previous testimony, it was between an hour and two
4 hours. I didn't make a note of the time exactly.
5 Q. You were accompanied by Ambassador Thebault?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. He was doing most of the talking; right?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Once again, two familiar themes appear in the
10 notes. Mr. Aleksovski complained about the activities
11 of the 7th Muslim Brigade, did he not?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. He also mentioned the incident at Dusina to
14 you. If you take a look at page 0-4, I think you'll
15 find a reference there.
16 MR. SAYERS: It's 0-4, Your Honours, and the
17 passage is just below the middle of the page. It
18 says: "For example, our people from Kacuni were all
19 expelled and then they burned the whole village."
20 Q. The first case happened in Dusina; do you see
21 that?
22 A. Correct.
23 Q. All right. Were you ever informed by way of
24 milinfosum or otherwise that the heart of the HVO
25 commander of the forces defending Dusina had been cut
1 out from his body after he had been killed?
2 A. Well, we have the reference here to what
3 Mr. Aleksovski told me. I can't honestly remember
4 reading it in any of the reports.
5 Q. All right. Now, you weren't prohibited from
6 speaking to anybody that you wanted; I think you've
7 stated that. The people that you did speak to told you
8 that they had been well-treated, didn't they?
9 A. They did say that. I'm not sure that I
10 necessarily believed, as I think I've said in previous
11 testimony, that what they were saying was not slightly
12 scripted.
13 Q. Well, that's what they told you?
14 A. Correct.
15 Q. They looked well-fed; right?
16 A. I'm not sure that they looked well-fed. They
17 didn't look as if they were starving.
18 Q. Right.
19 A. There's a difference.
20 Q. The ablutions were basic but clean?
21 A. Correct.
22 Q. And Mr. Aleksovski's two principal complaints
23 were that he had a lack of food generally; right?
24 A. Correct.
25 Q. And that he didn't have enough security
1 forces in his own gaol basically to take care of the
2 people that were in there; right?
3 A. Correct.
4 Q. Okay. I think that brings us, with one
5 exception, down to the people that you saw during your
6 visit. I believe that you went back to see Ramiz
7 Dugalic again on May the 11th?
8 A. That's correct.
9 Q. Would it be fair to say, sir, that he was
10 trying to persuade you that it was actually the HVO
11 that was responsible for the attacks and the
12 hostilities in Ahmici and Vitez in the middle of April
13 of 1993?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. All right. You did not do any interviews on
16 May the 12th?
17 A. No.
18 Q. All right.
19 MR. SAYERS: Your Honour, I have about, I
20 would say, 20 minutes more. This would be a convenient
21 point to break because I know Mr. Mikulicic will want
22 some cross-examination. I apologise for having to
23 bring this gentleman back. This might be a convenient
24 point to break.
25 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Mikulicic, is it right that
1 you're going to cross-examine?
2 MR. MIKULICIC: (Interpretation) Yes, Your
3 Honour. I should also like to ask several questions,
4 but I do not think I should be needing more than one
5 hour or so.
6 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Well, in that case, this
7 would be a convenient time.
8 Mr. McLeod, I'm afraid I shall have to ask
9 you to come back. I hope that it's possible to find a
10 convenient time as soon as possible to complete your
11 evidence. Meanwhile, would you remember what I said
12 earlier in relation to speaking to anybody about your
13 evidence? Don't do so, apart from making arrangements
14 with the Prosecution about returning.
15 Now, I'll be reminded when we're going to sit
16 again. The matters to be dealt with, as far as
17 evidence is concerned, will be heard next on Monday,
18 the 31st of May, at 3.00 p.m.
19 We will adjourn until then.
20 MR. STEIN: Your Honour, I'm a tad confused.
21 That's relative to the search and seizure issues on the
22 31st?
23 JUDGE MAY: If that's what we ordered, that's
24 what it would be.
25 MR. SCOTT: That's our understanding as
1 well. Thank you.
2 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at
3 1.00 p.m., to be reconvened on Monday,
4 the 31st day of May, 1999, at 3.00 p.m.
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