Page 7004
1 Thursday, 7 June 2001
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 9.33 a.m.
5 JUDGE HUNT: Call the case, please.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. Case number
7 IT-97-25-T, the Prosecutor versus Milorad Krnojelac.
8 JUDGE HUNT: Now, we have a witness, the first witness on
9 videolink. Madam, would you please make the solemn declaration in the
10 document which the Court deputy is showing you.
11 WITNESS: DESANKA BOGDANOVIC
12 [Witness answered through interpreter]
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak
14 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
15 [Witness testifies via videolink]
16 JUDGE HUNT: Sit down, please, madam.
17 Yes, Mr. Bakrac.
18 Examined by Mr. Bakrac:
19 Q. Good morning, ma'am. Can you hear me?
20 A. Yes, I can.
21 Q. I should like to ask you, since this is a videolink, and since we
22 both speak the same language, and my questions need to be interpreted,
23 that you make a brief pause after I finish my question and only then start
24 answering.
25 Ma'am, will you please be so kind as to give me your name and
Page 7005
1 surname.
2 A. My name is Desanka Bogdanovic, nee Djukanovic.
3 Q. [No interpretation]
4 A. I was born on the 14th of July, 1936, in Cetinje, Montenegro.
5 Q. What is your occupation?
6 A. I cannot hear you.
7 Q. I will try to put my question again. Can you hear me now?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Will you please tell me, what is your occupation?
10 A. I completed a five-year teachers' college in Karlovac, Croatia.
11 Q. When did you start working, and where?
12 A. I started on my job on the 1st of September, 1959, in Foca.
13 Q. Where did you start working?
14 A. In the primary school in Brod, near Foca.
15 Q. Can you hear me now?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Did you spend your years of service in Foca as a teacher or did
18 you change occupations?
19 A. I worked as a teacher until 1984, and then I became the school
20 secretary in the same school.
21 Q. When did you start working in the primary school Veselin Maslesa
22 in Foca? Can you remember?
23 A. On the 1st of September, 1962.
24 Q. Until what year did you work in the Veselin Maslesa primary school
25 in Foca?
Page 7006
1 A. Until 1995, when I got retired.
2 Q. Have you ever been convicted? Were there any misdemeanour
3 proceedings against you?
4 A. I have never been convicted, and this is the first time I am in a
5 court.
6 Q. In all your years of service as a professional in any occupation,
7 did you get any rewards and awards?
8 A. Yes, many, and one of the major ones is the 20th January award in
9 Foca.
10 Q. Can you hear me?
11 A. Yes. Yes.
12 Q. Did you get this award and does it mean that you're a honorary
13 citizen of Foca? Is it a special award?
14 A. Yes. That's precisely what it means. I'm a honorary citizen of
15 Foca.
16 Q. Do you know Mr. Milorad Krnojelac?
17 A. I first met Milorad Krnojelac in 1974.
18 Q. Can you tell me where?
19 A. There was a vacancy for a teacher in our school. He entered the
20 open competition for that vacancy, and he got the job.
21 Q. For how long, as far as you know, did Milorad Krnojelac work in
22 your school?
23 A. He worked in our school until April 1992.
24 Q. Starting with -- from 1974 until 1992?
25 A. Yes.
Page 7007
1 Q. What jobs did Milorad Krnojelac fill in your school?
2 A. He worked as a math teacher. He was very popular. He was elected
3 president of the workers' council and chairman of the workers' assembly.
4 He was elected member of many committees that existed in the school.
5 Q. You said until April 1992. Do you know where he got transferred
6 at that time?
7 A. According to his work duty, and all of us who were employed had
8 work duties issued to us by the Secretariat for Internal Affairs, Milorad
9 Krnojelac got his work duty in the penal and correctional facility in
10 Foca, the KP Dom.
11 Q. Where were you living at the moment when hostilities broke out in
12 Foca?
13 A. I lived in Donje Polje, which has a majority Muslim population.
14 Q. With whom were you living at the time when the war operations
15 started?
16 A. With my husband.
17 Q. What is his name?
18 A. Svetozar Bogdanovic.
19 Q. Did you spend the entire time of the war in Donje Polje?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Is Donje Polje a part of Foca town with -- which has a majority
22 Muslim population?
23 A. Yes. The majority population in Donje Polje was Muslim.
24 Q. At the outset, when the hostilities started, did anyone offer you
25 protection or suggested that you move to another apartment?
Page 7008
1 A. Yes. When hostilities started, we could not get out, and we
2 couldn't get out of Donje Polje. Our friends Hajrija Sabanovic and her
3 daughter Mervana and our friend Nedziba Sirbubalo came to live with us.
4 I'm sorry, gather together and suggest -- offered protection.
5 Q. What did they offer?
6 A. They offered that we moved in with them across the road.
7 Q. Why did -- why did they propose this to you?
8 A. They knew that Muslims were barging into Serbian houses, and they
9 were afraid that we might be mistreated.
10 Q. Did you really move in with one of these neighbours?
11 A. The three of them were together, and we rejected this proposal.
12 Q. If I understand you correctly, you remained to live in your own
13 apartment for the entire duration of the war.
14 A. Yes. Yes, together with another three families, also Serbian.
15 Q. These neighbours who invited you to come and live with them, did
16 they visit you regularly?
17 A. As soon as we said we wouldn't move in with them, they came to our
18 place.
19 Q. At that time, during the military operations in the territory of
20 Donje Polje, did Muslims enter Serbian houses?
21 A. Yes, and that is precisely why these women wanted to protect us.
22 Q. While you were living in your apartment, did armed Muslims come to
23 your apartment too?
24 A. Thanks to the three of them who were there and made it known that
25 they were living with us, nobody came to disturb us.
Page 7009
1 Q. After military operations in Foca stopped, did these three ladies
2 of Muslim ethnicity leave your apartment?
3 A. Yes. The two of them, Hajrija and Mervana Sabanovic, moved back
4 to their apartment, and Nedziba Sirbubalo moved back to her own apartment.
5 Q. And how long did they remain in Donje Polje, in that part of Foca?
6 A. They stayed until the 1st of July, 1992. They lived normally.
7 They tended their gardens.
8 Q. You said the 1st of July, 1992. Are you sure that is the date
9 when they left Foca?
10 A. I'm not sure whether it is really the 1st, but it's around that
11 time. It might be the 31st of June or the 1st of July.
12 Q. Can you tell me: In which way did the two of them approach you,
13 and why?
14 A. To tell you honestly, for the entire duration of the military
15 operations in Foca, we lived together, sharing both good and bad; and
16 later, when they moved back to their own house --
17 Q. I'm sorry. I didn't hear you well. Can you repeat this?
18 A. Later they were in their own house tending their garden and living
19 normally.
20 Q. Did they express the desire to leave Foca, and did they approach
21 you to that end?
22 A. One day -- in fact, we met every day. They would visit us or we
23 would visit them. But one day they came and said they wanted to go to
24 Montenegro, to a place called Berane, to visit their sister-in-law who was
25 living there with her baby.
Page 7010
1 Q. Why, then, did they turn to you to implement this intention of
2 theirs?
3 A. It's probably because they had confidence in me, just as I had
4 confidence in them.
5 Q. Were they able to leave Foca freely without any problems? Could
6 they have set out on that trip alone?
7 A. No. At that time there was a curfew in Foca, and at Brod, three
8 kilometres away from Foca, there was a police checkpoint, and it wasn't
9 possible to leave Foca without passing a control.
10 Q. Considering that in the month of July, large groups were able to
11 leave Foca freely, are you sure that it was the month of July when they
12 left Foca, in view of the curfew and all the rest?
13 MS. KUO: Objection, Your Honour. Defence counsel is stating a
14 piece of information that is not in evidence at all and in fact has not
15 been stated by this witness. He is leading this witness, simply.
16 JUDGE HUNT: Yes. I don't recall any evidence elsewhere in the
17 case, is there, of this fact? This is the "large groups were able to
18 leave Foca freely."
19 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, we have submitted one
20 of those - I don't know the IDD number - the decision on leaving or
21 decision on departures, and even witnesses testified about departures by
22 bus. I don't see the reason for this question.
23 JUDGE HUNT: Well, there is certainly evidence of people leaving,
24 but it was the description that you gave it of having permitted to leave
25 Foca freely that I would assume is the basis of the objection.
Page 7011
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Page 7012
1 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Yes. I apologise.
2 Q. Since you are mentioning curfew and all the other things, and nine
3 years have elapsed, are you sure that they left in July, or could it have
4 been the beginning of June? Are you certain of this? Can you refresh
5 your memory?
6 MS. KUO: Your Honour, I object, because Defence counsel is simply
7 leading this witness to a date he wishes her to address. There is nothing
8 in evidence. She was very certain of the date and he is giving her a new
9 date, suggesting it to her.
10 JUDGE HUNT: She said she wasn't certain that it was the 1st, as I
11 recall. That's about the only agreement the witness has given.
12 MS. KUO: That's right. She has said it's the beginning of July
13 or possibly the end of June, and now Defence counsel is suggesting to her
14 that it was the beginning of June, and I think that is improper.
15 JUDGE HUNT: Well, I'm not sure about that. He's not suggesting
16 it to her. He's asking her if it's possible that it could have been
17 earlier. If he merely said, "Could it have been earlier than the end of
18 June," there could be no objection to it, because she has expressed some
19 uncertainty.
20 MS. KUO: That's correct, but it's the manner in which he's doing
21 it, by giving her a specific time period that he wishes her to agree to.
22 JUDGE HUNT: Yes. It might be safer, if you want us to place any
23 reliance upon this, if you asked her in a more general form: Could it
24 have been earlier than the end of June?
25 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, thank you very much,
Page 7013
1 but if you allow me, the Defence never objected when Prosecution witnesses
2 made mistakes about dates or months, and then when the Prosecution asked
3 them, "Are you sure?" The Defence never protested in such cases. We have
4 document ID D90, and that's why this sounds odd to me. Nine years have
5 elapsed, and I'm just asking the witness: Could it have been earlier? So
6 I'm rephrasing my question. My question really wasn't phrased with the
7 intention of --
8 JUDGE HUNT: Well, Mr. Bakrac, you can leave the flourish out of
9 the objection, but the objection was nevertheless a good one. But I have
10 invited you to follow exactly the same process that the Prosecution
11 followed. Just ask her: Could it have been earlier? That's all we're
12 suggesting. You're not getting any unfair treatment out of this, I can
13 assure you.
14 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours. I really
15 believe that, and I will follow your instructions.
16 Q. Ma'am, please be so kind as to tell me, is it possible that this
17 event, the moment when they began to want to leave Foca, could it have
18 been earlier than end June or beginning of July, as you put it? Could it
19 have been earlier?
20 A. No, it couldn't. We were living with great difficulty. We had
21 lost all sense of time. And when we saw the first tomatoes and peppers
22 from Montenegro, we were surprised, and it was only then that we
23 remembered it was summer and vacation season was starting. At that time,
24 it was an abstraction.
25 Q. Since they approached you and told you they wanted to go to
Page 7014
1 Montenegro, what did you do?
2 A. I was very hard put to decide anything. There was no
3 transportation. There was a checkpoint at Brod. It was very risky
4 business to get involved with anything like that, but I had a moral
5 obligation as a human being towards those wonderful women who had helped
6 me when I had been in trouble.
7 Q. And what did you do then?
8 A. I racked my brain. I couldn't confide in anyone. I wanted to
9 help them, but I didn't know how to go about it. Every day, in fact
10 whenever he could find the time -- can you hear me?
11 Q. Ma'am, we didn't have an interpretation of what you said. Could
12 you please repeat it?
13 THE INTERPRETER: Everything has been interpreted.
14 A. I was racking my brain how to pay back, in terms of doing them a
15 favour, these women who had helped me so much.
16 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation]
17 Q. And what did you do next?
18 A. I couldn't -- didn't dare to confide in anyone. And since Milorad
19 Krnojelac, whenever he had a spare moment, came to our school feeling
20 great nostalgia over leaving the school, and on one of those occasions he
21 saw me and he noticed that I was sad, and he asked what was the matter and
22 I confided in him.
23 It's again something in my --
24 Q. Can you hear me, madam?
25 A. Only now.
Page 7015
1 Q. I was not even saying anything. I just let you speak. I wanted
2 to let you finish what you had started saying.
3 A. I said that Milorad Krnojelac came often to the school when he had
4 some free time. He saw me in a very bad mood, and he asked me what was
5 wrong, and I confided in him. He started thinking, and he said, "If I can
6 do something, I'll try."
7 Q. So you said to him ...
8 A. That I had a moral obligation as a human being and any other kind
9 of obligation to get these women out of Foca and to reunite them with
10 their families.
11 Q. Could you please be so kind as to tell me, madam, when does the
12 school year end?
13 A. On the 15th of June.
14 Q. Since you told me now that the school year ends on the 15th of
15 June and that Milorad Krnojelac came to see you at the school and that you
16 asked him then to do this, do you allow for the possibility that this
17 could have been earlier than the approximate date that you said, before
18 the 15th of June?
19 A. No. No. Again I can't hear you.
20 Q. Can you hear me, madam?
21 A. Only now.
22 Q. Please go ahead.
23 A. The children were on holiday. However, since I worked as
24 secretary of the school from 1984 onwards -- can you hear me?
25 Q. We can. We can. Please go ahead.
Page 7016
1 A. Since I worked as the secretary of the school from 1984 onwards, I
2 had to work, and the then-acting principal of the school also, like I did,
3 had to be at school every day, at the working place.
4 Q. And when you approached Milorad Krnojelac, what did he say to
5 you?
6 A. He said to me that it was difficult --
7 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters cannot follow what the lady is
8 saying.
9 A. He said that he would try to do whatever he can in order to help
10 me.
11 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters note that there was an interruption
12 between the interpreted sentences.
13 JUDGE HUNT: Mr. Bakrac, there's been a problem there, an
14 interruption, and there was a difficulty in understanding the beginning of
15 that answer.
16 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation]
17 Q. Madam, there was an interruption in the link. Can you hear me
18 now?
19 A. Not really.
20 Q. Can you hear me now?
21 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I have been receiving
22 the French interpretation in my headphones.
23 JUDGE HUNT: I'm glad it's your turn. We had it yesterday. The
24 French booth is moving around to overcome that problem. Are you able to
25 check what the witness said from the English transcript or do you want her
Page 7017
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Page 7018
1 to repeat it?
2 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation]
3 Q. Madam, can you hear me now?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Please, my last question was -- can you hear me?
6 JUDGE HUNT: The connection's been broken, but it seems to be
7 back. We've even got the picture in colour.
8 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation]
9 Q. Madam, can you hear me now?
10 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] It seems to me that as soon as I
11 speak up the line gets disconnected, Your Honour.
12 JUDGE HUNT: I'm sure there's no association, Mr. Bakrac. We'll
13 just have to sit and wait for a moment.
14 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation]
15 Q. Can you hear me now, madam? Can you hear me?
16 A. Only now.
17 Q. Yes, madam. My last question or, rather, your answer to my last
18 question was not fully interpreted. I asked you when you approached
19 Milorad Krnojelac with this request or, rather, when you said to him that
20 you had that problem, what did he say to you? What was his answer?
21 A. He said that he would try to help me if he is able to.
22 Q. And what happened then? Did he help you in resolving that
23 problem?
24 A. Yes. These two ladies, Hajrija and Mervana, insisted and wanted
25 to get out as soon as possible, hoping that their son would also get out
Page 7019
1 of Sarajevo and that they could all meet up in Berane. So I called
2 Milorad to ask him whether he had done something. He said to me that he
3 had found a man of his who often went in that direction, towards Scepan
4 Polje, and that we should be ready the next morning.
5 Q. And on the next morning, did Milorad Krnojelac come, and where did
6 he come, and when, and with whom?
7 A. In front of my apartment. He phoned me from the KP Dom around
8 6.30 and said that we should get out in front of the building. The three
9 of us did that. My husband, Svetozar Bogdanovic, was with us, and also
10 our lady neighbour and friend, Nedziba Sirbubalo. We waited for him in
11 front of the building.
12 Q. Did Milorad Krnojelac come, and with whom?
13 A. Milorad Krnojelac came with a man, a driver.
14 Q. Can you hear me, madam?
15 A. Yes, now I can.
16 Q. When they came, did you talk about anything?
17 A. We didn't talk very much, because all of us cried a lot. We put
18 the two ladies on the back seat, and they were crouching there, actually,
19 and then above we put some bags. Milorad Krnojelac helped us do all of
20 this. He kissed everybody goodbye, wished them good luck, and tears were
21 pouring down his cheeks as well.
22 Q. Did you leave together with your two neighbours and the driver?
23 A. Yes, I did, so that it would be easier for them to get round in
24 Montenegro, because they were not familiar with that area.
25 Q. Do you have relatives in Montenegro?
Page 7020
1 A. Yes. I'm a Montenegrin. I was born in Cetinje and I have
2 relatives in Podgorica as well.
3 Q. Is that to say that you set out on this journey with them, and did
4 later these two women you took out have anything to say about this event?
5 A. We took them out safely. The police did not stop us at Brod,
6 because they knew the driver who was driving us. So we safely arrived at
7 the border with Montenegro and from there we took a bus to Podgorica.
8 Since their bus to Berane was supposed to leave at 2100 hours, I took them
9 to my relatives, where we had lunch, took a rest, had dinner; and finally,
10 my relative, together with me, took them to the bus station.
11 Q. When you say that you were brought to the border, is that Scepan
12 Polje? Is that what the place is called there?
13 A. Yes. Yes, it is Scepan Polje.
14 Q. When you were seeing these two ladies off to Berane in Podgorica,
15 did they say something to you about Milorad Krnojelac?
16 A. Yes, they did. It was very hard for us to part in Podgorica, as
17 if we knew that perhaps it was the last time. Because Hajrija
18 Sabanovic - I heard about that - died later, and that is a lady from a
19 wonderful, well-known Muslim family. And both of them, through tears as
20 they were hugging me, said, "Desa, we have to remember well the name of
21 Milorad Krnojelac, because we may need that sometime."
22 Q. Tell me: Did Milorad Krnojelac ask you later about a third
23 person, Nedziba?
24 A. Yes, because that morning when he came so that we could see off
25 these women, it was the first time he saw them and Nedziba. And since we
Page 7021
1 were all crying, including Milorad Krnojelac and my husband - although
2 they're men, they cried - and he asked me what he thought -- what she
3 thought. And we said that for the time being, she would stay there. And
4 he said to me then, and I greatly appreciate that, "If need be, approach
5 me again and we'll try to do our best again."
6 Q. Thank you, madam. Tell me: Since you've known Milorad Krnojelac
7 since 1974, did Milorad Krnojelac display any nationalistic hang-ups? Was
8 he a nationalist in any way?
9 A. No. That is precisely why I confided in him, because I had many
10 more friends. I had people with whom we visited at home every day and we
11 saw each other every day, but I didn't dare confide in them. Milorad
12 Krnojelac did not ever show, with a single gesture, that he's a
13 nationalist. He celebrated the Orthodox Christmas and the Catholic
14 Christmas. His wife is a Croat, by the way. He was well liked by Muslims
15 and Serbs and Montenegrins. Those are the ethnic groups that worked at
16 the school. And that could be seen by the fact that he was elected
17 chairman of the workers' council, chairman of the workers' assembly, that
18 he would, for the most part, receive 100 per cent of the votes of all
19 employees.
20 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Thank you, madam. Thank you very
21 much for testifying.
22 The Defence has no further questions of this witness, Your
23 Honour.
24 JUDGE HUNT: Cross-examination, Ms. Kuo.
25 MS. KUO: Thank you, Your Honour.
Page 7022
1 Cross-examined by Ms. Kuo:
2 Q. Good morning, madam. Can you hear me?
3 A. Good morning. I can hear you, yes.
4 Q. Ma'am, you are of the Orthodox religion; is that right?
5 A. Yes, and an ethnic Montenegrin.
6 Q. You mentioned your friends Mervana and Hajrija Sabanovic, and you
7 mentioned that they are Muslim. Could you tell us their ages, please,
8 approximately how old they were at this time?
9 A. Hajrija could have been close to 70. And Mervana was an engineer
10 of chemistry. Perhaps she was born in 1961, 1962. I can't exactly say.
11 Q. Do you know whether Mervana was married, and if so, where her
12 husband was?
13 A. She was not married. She had a brother in Sarajevo. They are
14 twins.
15 Q. And the other friend, Nedziba, she is also Muslim; right?
16 A. Yes. Yes.
17 Q. You mentioned that when the conflict broke out, that you lived in
18 Donje Polje and that your friends expressed concern for your safety
19 because you and your husband were Orthodox; is that right?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. But you rejected their offer to go stay with them in their homes
22 because you did not feel threatened; isn't that right?
23 A. No. I did think I was threatened. However, in that building of
24 ours, there were two more couples, young couples, a Croat and his Serb
25 wife, and also a mother with her son, and it would have been very
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Page 7024
1 embarrassing for me that we elderly people go to protect ourselves and
2 leave them behind. That is why we didn't leave.
3 Q. Yet you let your Muslim friends come stay with you as protection,
4 is that what you're saying?
5 A. Yes. Yes. They said to me, "If you don't want to come and stay
6 with us with your husband, we're coming over to stay with you," and all
7 three of them came.
8 Q. You did not reject their offer to stay with you; right?
9 A. No. No. I actually said that they were quite free to come.
10 Q. From the outside it was clear that the people living in that
11 apartment building were Orthodox and Serb, right, and the one person was
12 Croat? What I mean to say is --
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. -- your Muslim friends came to stay with you. They didn't
15 actually move in and change their official residence, they just came and
16 stayed with you a few days; right?
17 A. They spent the entire time of the war operations in the town of
18 Foca with us.
19 Q. And how many days was that?
20 A. Well, it was about 12 days. I can't remember exactly any longer.
21 We spent quite a bit time in the basement of that building.
22 Q. Before they came and stayed with you, no Muslims came and barged
23 into your apartment, did they?
24 A. No, because they immediately, the next day -- actually, war broke
25 out around the 4th, I think - I can't say exactly - and the very next
Page 7025
1 morning, they called me.
2 Q. So the period of danger that you're referring to when you said
3 Muslims were barging into apartments was just the one day, and they never
4 barged into your apartment; right?
5 A. I don't know how long it lasted, how many days and other
6 buildings, but as for our apartment, when they came and since they knew
7 them, this noble old lady, Hajrija, she'd seen her daughter Mervana to the
8 Muslim headquarters that was close to us at the electricity board building
9 to inform them that they were staying with us, having said that they came
10 to stay with an honest family and that the Muslims should not worry about
11 them at all, because this lady Hajrija was very popular among the Muslims
12 because she is from a very honourable, old Muslim family.
13 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters note that there was an interruption
14 and the last word was, "they were concerned."
15 MS. KUO:
16 Q. Madam, there was an interruption in our connection, and let me
17 just read back to you the part where we stopped, when you said that she
18 was from a very honourable, old Muslim family. Can you repeat to us what
19 you said immediately after that? Because we didn't hear it.
20 A. She sent her daughter Mervana to headquarters of the SDA party.
21 That's that Muslim party.
22 Q. Madam, by the 18th of April, Foca was securely in Serb hands;
23 right?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And you refer to this event to a prior statement that you gave to
Page 7026
1 Defence counsel and Defence investigators as the liberation of Foca.
2 Those are your words; right?
3 A. Yes. That's the language that was used then and that's the
4 language that had to be used.
5 Q. The statement that you gave was in 1998, and I would like to
6 confirm with you that, in fact, the "liberation of Foca" was the word or
7 the phrase that you used to describe what happened.
8 A. When I gave that statement, I was very seriously ill - I still
9 am - and at that time, I was even partly paralysed, so I could not really
10 control each and every word.
11 Q. Madam, you saw what happened when the Serb forces took over as, in
12 fact, the liberation of Foca; right? Because you felt threatened by the
13 Muslims forces. So when the Serb forces won and took over, you considered
14 it liberation; right?
15 A. No. No. That's not the way I saw it, and I did not feel any
16 freer than before.
17 Q. At that point, your Muslim friends left your apartment, and you no
18 longer felt that you needed their protection; isn't that right?
19 A. I no longer felt that I needed their protection, but nevertheless,
20 I was still very afraid because my husband was in a non-nationalist party,
21 in the party called the Movement for Yugoslavia, so he was looked upon
22 differently.
23 Q. You stopped living in the basement of your apartment building;
24 right?
25 A. No. At that time, we were not living in the basement. We were
Page 7027
1 living in our apartment. They were in their house, Nedziba Sirbubalo was
2 in her apartment.
3 Q. From the 18th of April onward, after the Serb forces took over,
4 isn't it true that the Muslim citizens of Foca began to be targeted and
5 persecuted, that restrictions were placed on them that were more than
6 those placed on other nationalities in Foca?
7 A. I'm not aware of that. Knowing only these three ladies who freely
8 lived in their house, handled their garden, went to town freely, Nedziba
9 Sirbubalo also went to town freely, I did not deal with the others because
10 I was preoccupied with many other things. We had nothing to eat. We had
11 no food whatsoever. So we were thinking about those problems, not
12 others.
13 Q. Ma'am, in the statement that you gave to Defence investigators,
14 you described how the Sabanovics decided to leave Foca due to certain
15 events. Isn't it true that these certain events is the fact that the
16 Muslims were being persecuted and they no longer felt welcome to stay in
17 Foca?
18 A. I'm sorry, I did not hear the first part of your question.
19 Q. I'll repeat it. In the statement that you gave to Defence
20 investigators, which I have referred to - that was in 1998 - you described
21 how the Sabanovics decided to leave Foca due to certain events. And those
22 are your words, "due to certain events." And my question to you is:
23 Isn't it true that these certain events that you refer to was the fact
24 that the Muslims were being persecuted and no longer felt welcome to stay
25 in Foca?
Page 7028
1 A. No. For the most part, for the most part it was the fact that
2 practically all of their neighbours had left. That was the first thing.
3 And I asked them whether there was anybody who was bothering them, and
4 they said that they were not being bothered. However, they were hoping
5 that their son would get out of Sarajevo, which is what he did, actually,
6 and that they would all meet up in Berane where the daughter-in-law and
7 the newborn baby were. That was the main reason, the main objective for
8 their departure.
9 Q. Ma'am, you said that you had family in Montenegro. During this
10 time, you didn't need a permit to go visit them; right?
11 A. I couldn't get out without a permit, nor could they get in to see
12 me.
13 Q. When the Sabanovics approached you, it was to ask for your help;
14 isn't that right?
15 A. They approached me believing that I was their true friend, and
16 indeed I was.
17 Q. They approached you asking for your help, right, as a friend?
18 A. Since at that time no transportation was available, there were no
19 buses, cars, or anything, nor was I able to hire anyone, and even if I had
20 my own car, I couldn't have got out on my own because there was no fuel to
21 be bought at that time.
22 Q. Fuel was very, very scarce, right, and only very few people had
23 access to it?
24 A. No, not some people. It's just that the people who had sort of
25 prepared had made supplies in time, and even I had some fuel down in my
Page 7029
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Page 7030
1 garage, but it burnt eventually.
2 Q. So what you're saying is people who knew that there was going to
3 be a war began to stockpile before the war even started; right?
4 A. Well, fuel was scarce long before the war, and if I had expected
5 that what happened would happen, I wouldn't have waited for it; I would
6 have left long ago to my family in Foca -- in Montenegro.
7 THE INTERPRETER: Sorry. Interpreter's apologies.
8 MS. KUO:
9 Q. Mrs. Bogdanovic, are you saying that the Sabanovics approached you
10 for your help simply because they had no transportation?
11 A. Yes, and also because of their desire to reunite with their
12 family.
13 Q. Isn't it true that they needed a permit to leave Foca and go to
14 Montenegro, just as you said you did?
15 A. We all needed a permit. They could have got out on one of those
16 buses on which the Muslims who left voluntarily left, but they didn't want
17 to go like that, nor did they want to join any of the groups. They wanted
18 to go normally to their sister-in-law.
19 Q. Isn't it true that they were unable to get a permit to leave?
20 A. That is not true. We were all able to get a permit, but the
21 problem was the police in Brod. They wouldn't have let me get out even if
22 I had a permit.
23 Q. Ma'am, I'm asking about the Sabanovics and their desire to leave.
24 They wanted to leave Foca, but they could not get a permit to leave; isn't
25 that right? They would have to go to the Serb authorities in Foca to get
Page 7031
1 a permit to leave, and they couldn't do that; right?
2 A. They could have, and that's what they did. Hajrija and Mervana
3 went and got a permit in which it was indicated precisely where they were
4 going, and that was to Berane, to their sister-in-law's.
5 Q. So in other words, there was no need for any secrecy in their
6 departure, right; it was all open and official?
7 A. There was a need. No, no. There was a need, because I got issued
8 with a permit allowing me to go only as far as Scepan Polje, where my
9 family would bring me food, and the permit I had didn't really mean
10 anything, because I couldn't have got out.
11 Q. I'm asking about secrecy in Foca. If the Foca authorities gave
12 the Sabanovics permits to leave, there was no need to hide the fact that
13 they were leaving; right?
14 A. It was the civilian authorities who issued the permits and it was
15 the military authorities who were in power, and the two didn't get along
16 well, so the permits issued by the civilian authorities didn't mean much
17 to the military administration.
18 Q. Are you saying that at this time in Foca, the military and
19 civilian authorities did not cooperate in running the town? Is that what
20 you're saying?
21 A. I don't think they did.
22 Q. Are you saying that a permit officially issued by the
23 municipality, the Serbian municipality of Foca, would not have been
24 respected by the military authorities in Foca, who are also Serb and had
25 taken over the town?
Page 7032
1 A. I cannot affirm that, but I only know about my own permit, which
2 wasn't -- didn't really carry any weight.
3 Q. Madam, the point of this whole trip was not for you to go visit
4 your relatives; right? You went as an afterthought. But the point,
5 you've been telling us, about this trip was that the Sabanovics
6 desperately wanted to leave Foca and came to you to ask for help, and this
7 information upset you, you've told us, so that you didn't tell anyone
8 except your very trusted friend, Milorad Krnojelac. Isn't that right?
9 It's not about you; it's about them and their safety.
10 A. I tried earlier to go to Montenegro to procure food, and my permit
11 didn't allow me to go that far, so that is the reason why I supposed that
12 these permits that were issued to Mervana and Hajrija and myself would not
13 take us that far either, and that is why I approached Milorad Krnojelac.
14 Q. When the Sabanovics approached you to ask -- to tell you that they
15 wanted to leave Foca, this information was something you felt you needed
16 to keep secret, right, and you dared not confide this matter to anybody,
17 even to very close friends, except to Milorad Krnojelac; right? This was
18 information you felt you had to keep to yourself.
19 A. Precisely, yes, because not only did I not dare to confide in
20 anyone or discuss it with anyone, but I was afraid. There was fear in the
21 air. It was an anxiety. I couldn't tell you -- I couldn't put my finger
22 on it why, but I knew I was afraid. And even the fact that I am seriously
23 ill now, I have been told that it was caused by stress.
24 Q. The fear that you're describing was a fear for the Sabanovics'
25 safety and your concern for them; right?
Page 7033
1 A. For them and for myself. I was afraid. Even when I delivered
2 them to Montenegro, I was afraid. Of what, I don't know, but fear
3 permeated my soul. I was against that war. I wasn't able to take it. I
4 feel as a cosmopolitan and I think that way. I don't care what ethnicity,
5 colour, or religion anyone is; I care what kind of person they are.
6 Q. When you said goodbye to the Sabanovics, you all cried because you
7 felt you would never see them again, because they had no plans to come
8 back to Foca; right?
9 A. We didn't discuss that part, whether they were planning or not to
10 come back, but it was a difficult, painful parting. We were all crying.
11 Q. In fact, in the intervening years, you've said how Hajrija died,
12 but her daughter Mervana never returned to Foca, did she?
13 A. I don't know, because the war was still going on when in 1993 I
14 underwent surgery in Belgrade. I had a carcinoma. After the surgery, I
15 spent a long time in Belgrade and then I moved to Montenegro where I
16 underwent radiation, chemotherapy, and lots of postoperative procedures,
17 and I was in great pain. I was overwhelmed by my own troubles, and I
18 didn't give anything else much thought.
19 Q. When the Sabanovics left Foca, they left their home, they left
20 their house and almost all their belongings; right?
21 A. They took with them two bags filled with various necessities, and
22 Hajrija left behind her key and gave it to me because there was a
23 committee of accommodation for refugees attached to the town hall, and she
24 told me to give the key to them because there were families who were
25 coming from Sarajevo, Gorazde and other places, and she wanted one of
Page 7034
1 those families to move into their house, to use it, and she said that it
2 was the Alal, which is a Muslim expression for the right thing to do.
3 Q. Let's go back to 1992, when you learned that the Sabanovics wanted
4 to leave. You told us that you were working as a secretary at the school,
5 and this was the summer, June of 1992. You said the school year ended on
6 June 15th. The schools were not actually functioning at that time;
7 right? There were no pupils going to school?
8 A. The schools were functioning. The number of pupils was reduced,
9 but the schools were functioning the whole time except for the first few
10 days when the military operations were going on. All the rest of the
11 time, schools worked normally.
12 Q. So that means that teachers -- there were teachers teaching;
13 right?
14 A. It was mostly female staff who had received their work duties,
15 because the men had received their wartime assignments in the army or in
16 the KP Dom, as Krnojelac, and it was only the acting school principal, a
17 Serb about -- over 62 years old. He was the only man among us then.
18 Q. But, in other words, there were actually classes being conducted
19 with students and teachers learning history and math and things like that;
20 right?
21 A. Yes, there were. Mostly women taught. They taught three or four
22 subjects each, but tuition was organised normally and in two shifts at
23 that, as usual, the morning shift and the afternoon shift.
24 Q. And Milorad Krnojelac knew that the schools were functioning
25 during this time, because you told us he often visited out of nostalgia;
Page 7035
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Page 7036
1 right?
2 A. He came often, even when we closed down for a vacation, but I was
3 still there, together with the acting director and the technical
4 personnel. We all came to work every day. The teachers - it was mostly
5 women teachers - could not leave Foca either, although they were all
6 Orthodox.
7 Q. And when you say you continued working after you were closed for
8 vacation, you mean after the 15th of June and throughout the summer;
9 right?
10 A. Yes. Yes.
11 Q. Could you tell us what hours the school functioned during that
12 time?
13 A. From 7.30 -- it depended on the classes which were shortened.
14 They didn't last 45 minutes but 35. And depending on the timetable for
15 each grade, we would finish around lunch, and the second shift began
16 around 12.30.
17 Q. What time did the school close?
18 A. There was someone on duty at all times. Two women, for instance,
19 would be on duty from 7.00 until midnight, and from midnight to 7.00 a.m.
20 another two women would be on duty.
21 Q. What times during the day did Milorad Krnojelac come visit the
22 school?
23 A. Whenever he had a moment to spare. Around 11.00, 12.00, because
24 he travelled a lot. He had to procure food for the KP Dom, for the cow
25 farm, the farm which also had hens. And all that we managed to say to
Page 7037
1 each other when he came to visit actually came down to this: I told him
2 on one occasion, "You seem to be a quartermaster over there, Milorad," and
3 he said, "Precisely." Because food was in short supply. People had
4 nothing to eat. We received flour from --
5 Q. Madam --
6 A. -- which we made bread which smelled awful. It wasn't healthy.
7 Q. Madam. Madam, let's just stick with the questions and answer the
8 questions. Okay?
9 You were aware that Milorad Krnojelac did not have any official
10 business at the school; right?
11 A. No, he had no official reason, but he was very sorry that he had
12 left school. He was very sorry that all of that had happened. He was
13 very sad.
14 Q. So what you're telling us is that during working hours, when he
15 was supposed to be working at the KP Dom doing whatever job, that instead
16 of working, he went to visit the school on personal business, out of
17 feelings of pure nostalgia; right? That's what you're telling us, that
18 instead of working, he was off doing something else?
19 A. No. He was running the errands entrusted to him and that was
20 mainly food purchases. And whenever he would drive to Perucica - that's
21 an enterprise where he would get food for the KP Dom - he would drop by.
22 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I just wanted to react,
23 since I'm on my feet. The witness is trying to explain, and my learned
24 friend was about to interrupt her. The witness was trying to answer the
25 question how it came about that he dropped by. That's why I got on my
Page 7038
1 feet, reacting to my colleague's intention to interrupt this witness.
2 JUDGE HUNT: Mr. Bakrac, the witness is not entitled to answer
3 more than the question which was asked. It's a problem that we have with
4 so many witnesses. They want to tell us something which is not relevant
5 to the question, and counsel is entitled to cut them off and to say, "I
6 want you to answer my question." Now, that's all that Ms. Kuo has done.
7 I didn't understand her to be cutting her off from the last answer. She
8 certainly cut the witness off from the previous answer. And from all
9 appearances on the screen, the witness had finished answering that last
10 question at the time the present question was asked.
11 I think you must let counsel have some control over the answers,
12 but if she does attempt to cut off the witness when she is answering the
13 question, then please do object. But I don't think she was doing it on
14 this occasion.
15 You proceed, Ms. Kuo.
16 MS. KUO: Thank you, Your Honour.
17 Q. Milorad Krnojelac was not at the school to purchase any food;
18 right?
19 A. No. He couldn't have got any food at school. But not far from
20 our school, no more than 50 metres, there was a trading enterprise which
21 included our main shop of foodstuffs.
22 Q. He wasn't at the school to deliver any food; right?
23 A. No, not to deliver food. He didn't buy any food for the school;
24 he bought it for the KP Dom.
25 Q. So my question to you was: Surely his only reason for stopping by
Page 7039
1 the school was social, to say hello on his way somewhere else; right?
2 A. He would come on those errands of food procurement, and while
3 foodstuffs were being loaded he would drop by and see me. His visits were
4 not long. As soon as the driver would tell him that everything had been
5 loaded, he would leave the school.
6 MS. KUO: Your Honours, it's 11.00.
7 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you. We'll adjourn now until 11.30.
8 --- Recess taken at 11.00 a.m.
9 --- On resuming at 11.35 a.m.
10 JUDGE HUNT: Ms. Kuo.
11 MS. KUO:
12 Q. Ms. Bogdanovic, before the break you were describing the short
13 visits that Milorad Krnojelac made to the school during the course of the
14 day. The fact that the school closed or the school year ended on the 15th
15 of June did not -- can you hear me?
16 A. It's only now that I can hear you.
17 JUDGE HUNT: I should say that the sound quality coming from the
18 remote area is very poor, and no doubt she is having the same trouble that
19 the interpreters here are having in hearing what is going on. So we have
20 to put up with these problems, I'm afraid.
21 MS. KUO:
22 Q. Ms. Bogdanovic, before the break you were describing the short
23 visits that Milorad Krnojelac made to the school, and I'd like to ask you
24 whether the fact that the school year ended on the 15th of June in 1992,
25 whether that fact had any effect on his visits or whether he continued to
Page 7040
1 visit even after that date.
2 A. He came after that date, and everything that we discussed
3 concerning the Sabanovics happened after that date, after the 15th of
4 June.
5 Q. So in other words, there was no period of time after -- between
6 the 15th of June and approximately the 1st of July when Milorad Krnojelac
7 did not come to the school? There was no time in there when he was
8 absent?
9 A. I did not understand your question.
10 Q. How often did he come to the school, approximately?
11 A. When he would have time to, because he was mainly involved in
12 providing supplies, providing food, that is.
13 Q. Was it every few days?
14 A. I can't remember. Mainly when he would have the time to. He
15 often went to Montenegro as well, and to Serbia, in order to provide food.
16 Q. Now, you've told us that the date that the Sabanovics actually
17 left Foca was either the 1st of July or -- you said the 31st of June, but
18 June has only 30 days, so I take it that you meant the 30th of June or the
19 1st of July.
20 A. That was a slip of the tongue.
21 Q. Okay. Approximately two days before they left was when you spoke
22 with Milorad Krnojelac and finally told him about the Sabanovics; right?
23 A. Yes. Actually, earlier, perhaps a few days before that, Milorad
24 promised me that he would try to see whether he could do something about
25 it.
Page 7041
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Page 7042
1 Q. So actually even a few days earlier than the 28th of June you had
2 already discussed this with him; right?
3 A. Well, yes. Well, that's what I've told you already.
4 Q. I just want to be clear on the dates, ma'am. And at the time that
5 you told Milorad Krnojelac about the Sabanovics' desire to leave, he
6 didn't tell you about any personal or family concerns of his, did he? His
7 immediate reaction was to reach out and help the Sabanovics; right?
8 A. He precisely wanted to help the Sabanovics and me, too, because we
9 were friends. And I confided in him knowing that he's a humanist, that
10 he's not a nationalist, that he is a wonderful and honest man.
11 Q. Mr. Krnojelac never told you, "I don't think I can actually help
12 you because I'm afraid of what might happen to myself"; right?
13 A. He said that he will try to do that, because in my conviction, he
14 was being watched by the military administration too.
15 Q. Mr. Krnojelac never told you, "That's not within my competency. I
16 can't help you"; right?
17 A. He did not say that to me. He just said that he would try.
18 Q. And he also never said, "Well, benzine is very scarce, and I don't
19 have access to a car, so I can't help you"? He never said that either,
20 did he?
21 A. We didn't talk about that.
22 Q. Actually, he never said to you that he was being watched by the
23 military authorities and, therefore, couldn't help you; right?
24 A. I came to the conclusion, on the basis of what he said to me, that
25 he had found a man of his and that I should not tell anyone about it, that
Page 7043
1 he was being watched.
2 Q. Whom specifically did he say he was being watched by?
3 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, objection. Well, that's
4 not what the witness said, that he said that. The witness said she came
5 to the conclusion that he was being watched?
6 A. Yes.
7 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] The next question was: "Who did he
8 say that to?" and the witness had said clearly that she came to the
9 conclusion that he was being watched.
10 I understand what leading questions are, Your Honour, but the
11 Defence did not always object when questions were being put in relation to
12 something that the witness had not originally said.
13 MS. KUO: Your Honour, I misunderstood.
14 JUDGE HUNT: Mr. Bakrac, may I say this, and I hope for the last
15 time: We are attempting to conduct this trial as fairly as possible. We
16 are applying the same rulings as to cross-examination and examination to
17 both counsel or counsel from both sides, and I do feel it is unfair for
18 you to continually point out that we appear to be giving rulings in favour
19 of the Prosecution and against you.
20 Now, let's not have objections without what you have done in the
21 past and what you think we have done in the past. Let's just deal with
22 this specific objection.
23 Now, I agree with you the witness had simply said that was her
24 conclusion. She never said that he had told her that. So the question
25 was wrong, and I think Ms. Kuo was about to concede that. But please
Page 7044
1 let's not have this constant imputation of unfairness.
2 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I do apologise. I was
3 either misinterpreted or you misunderstood me. I indeed did not have that
4 intention to suggest that the Trial Chamber did not have the same attitude
5 towards both sides. That was not my intention. That was not my idea. I
6 just said that the Prosecution is putting such questions often. That's
7 all I said, nothing else, and that this is one example. When an answer is
8 given that a question is being rephrased, rephrased to mean that it was --
9 that the witness had actually answered it differently. So I do apologise
10 to you once again, but I was not suggesting in any way that there were
11 double standards involved.
12 JUDGE HUNT: I'm not going to proceed upon the basis that because
13 of past conduct I should assume they're doing the same here. Certainly
14 yesterday and today there have been a few questions which have been
15 wrongly asked. They're not alone in that, though. Everybody does it at
16 different times.
17 Ms. Kuo, I think, is going to withdraw the question.
18 MS. KUO: Yes, Your Honour. I misunderstood because there was a
19 subordinate phrase, and I would like to get that clarified. I'm as
20 interested in having a clear answer as anybody else here.
21 Q. Ms. Bogdanovic, we'd like to have a little more clarity in this
22 area. Could you tell us specifically what Milorad Krnojelac told you?
23 And the then next I'll ask you is what you concluded on that basis. So
24 first just tell us what he told you.
25 A. In connection with what? In connection with what? What he said
Page 7045
1 to me in connection with what?
2 Q. Let me ask the question in the other direction then. You've told
3 us that you concluded that he was being watched by the military; right?
4 A. I personally came to that conclusion.
5 Q. On what basis did you come to that conclusion?
6 A. Because he said to me that I should not tell anybody about what he
7 would do for these women.
8 Q. Why did you conclude that he was being watched rather than anyone
9 else?
10 A. Because then I could freely go around saying Milorad Krnojelac
11 helped me get these two women out, and I was not supposed to say that even
12 to my best friends.
13 Q. Why did you conclude that he was being watched by the military
14 rather than by anyone else?
15 A. I came to that conclusion because he primarily dealt with civilian
16 matters, providing food, cows, and chickens for the farm, and that produce
17 was then sold so that people would have food to buy. In my profound
18 conviction, he was involved only in economic affairs. That's what I said
19 to him once as well: "It seems to me that you're just a quartermaster,"
20 what he confirmed to me.
21 Q. Ms. Bogdanovic, did it occur to you that he might not want anyone
22 to know this, what he was doing, because he was using KP Dom -- a KP Dom
23 car and KP Dom gasoline and KP Dom staff for something that was not
24 related to KP Dom business? Could that have also been a reason for him
25 not wanting anyone to know?
Page 7046
1 A. That vehicle did not belong to the KP Dom at all. It belonged to
2 the man who came to pick us up. It was a private vehicle owned by the man
3 who took us out.
4 Q. The man who took you out was a KP Dom guard or policeman, isn't
5 that right, Zoran Mijovic?
6 A. To tell you the truth, I didn't even know his name. It was the
7 first time I ever saw him, and I think that I never saw him again after
8 that. I just knew that he was doing something at the KP Dom and that very
9 often he went in the direction of Scepan Polje, Montenegro, that is.
10 Q. So that driver himself was very familiar with that route from Foca
11 to Scepan Polje; right?
12 A. Well, that is precisely why Milorad engaged him, so that we would
13 not be stopped by the police. I don't even know whether it was the
14 military police or the civilian police or the military, whoever. They did
15 not stop him because he travelled there very often, to work and from work,
16 and so he just waved at them by way of a greeting and we just passed.
17 Q. So in other words, the fact that you were in the car didn't make
18 things any easier or harder to get through to Scepan Polje, did it? The
19 man himself, the driver himself, had no problems, because he was familiar
20 with that route; right?
21 A. Well, only thanks to him we passed without any kind of control.
22 Q. Now, you described this car as having belonged to the driver.
23 What kind of car was it?
24 A. The colour was white. To tell you the truth, I don't know what
25 make it was. Pretty old. That's it. I was not psychologically prepared
Page 7047
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Page 7048
1 at that moment to think about the car. I just know it was pretty old and
2 that it was his vehicle, because he told me that as we were travelling.
3 Q. Let's go back to the time when you spoke with Mr. Krnojelac about
4 having the Sabanovics taken out of Foca. Until the moment that you told
5 him this, you had not dared to confide this matter to anyone else; right?
6 You considered it a secret request by the Sabanovics to you.
7 A. No, that was not their request. I personally was afraid.
8 Q. After you spoke with Milorad Krnojelac, you told him the next day
9 that the Sabanovics wanted to leave Foca immediately; right?
10 A. When he said to me that he would do something and that something
11 was in the making, when I told the Sabanovic ladies, they were very
12 happy. They were grateful to me. And they said, "We want to leave on the
13 very next day." I asked them, "Did perhaps someone disturb you the night
14 before, the night before that, because you want to leave so fast, so
15 soon?" and their answer was no.
16 Q. And you then spoke with Milorad Krnojelac and told them that the
17 Sabanovics wanted to leave the next day. You relayed this information to
18 Mr. Krnojelac; right?
19 A. Yes. Yes. I relayed that to him and he said that he would let me
20 know whether it could take place on the very next day. He let me know
21 that it could be in the morning, before 7.00, around 6.30.
22 Q. So in fact, the very next day, at the time that Mr. Krnojelac set,
23 that is, 7.00 in the morning, you all gathered to make this trip; right?
24 A. Before 7.00. We got together before 7.00 and we left before 7.00.
25 Q. When you spoke and -- I understand that the first time you spoke
Page 7049
1 to Mr. Krnojelac was when he came to the school, but when you contacted
2 him to say that the Sabanovics wanted to leave the next day and when he
3 contacted you to tell you that he had made the arrangements for early the
4 next morning, how were those communications made? Was it in person at the
5 school again?
6 A. No. That was over the telephone. But we did not mention any
7 names. We just said, "That matter has been resolved. Tomorrow between
8 6.30 and 7.00 this person will come." I did not expect Milorad Krnojelac
9 to come with that driver.
10 Q. At that time had you already planned to go to Montenegro or was
11 that something that was decided between you and the driver?
12 A. No. I decided that, together with the two ladies.
13 Q. So the driver never asked you to go with him; right?
14 A. I didn't know him. I first saw him that very morning.
15 Q. But my question is: The driver didn't ask you that very morning
16 if you would go with him. You had already decided to go; right?
17 A. Yes. I had decided -- he actually asked because he did not know
18 what my decision was. He asked, "Is it only the two of them?" and I said,
19 "I'm coming too."
20 Q. But just to be very clear about this, he didn't ask you
21 specifically to go with him to help him in any way?
22 A. No. He asked me -- actually, I opened the front door to get in,
23 and he asked me, "Are you coming too?" and I said, "Yes, I am."
24 Q. How big was that car? Was it a small car or a big car?
25 A. It was a small car. I think it was something like a Zastava or
Page 7050
1 something, an ordinary car. Two people could sit in the back seat, and
2 then in front, the driver's seat and the seat next to the driver. I sat
3 on the seat next to the driver.
4 Q. And there was also room for the two bags for each of the
5 Sabanovics; right?
6 A. There was room. Actually, they were crouching until we passed
7 Brod, the checkpoint there, and we put the bags on the actual seats.
8 Q. In other words, you were hiding them under the bags, right, until
9 you got out of Foca?
10 A. Well, something like that.
11 Q. You mentioned that your husband was also present, and earlier you
12 said that he was a member of a non-nationalist party, and as a result of
13 that, he was looked upon differently. Can you explain what you meant by
14 that?
15 A. Well, he was in the Movement for Yugoslavia. All the ethnic
16 groups, Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Montenegrins were in this party.
17 Nationalist parties were already being established then. The Muslim party
18 on the one side and the Serb party on the other side. Then this was sort
19 of sticking out. They didn't like it very much.
20 Q. What I'm interested in is the phrase or your description that your
21 husband was looked upon differently. Who looked upon him differently and
22 why?
23 A. Well, he was looked upon differently by this military
24 administration, and generally speaking, he got work obligation at the
25 bank. He was there on duty the entire night, every other night by
Page 7051
1 himself, without electricity, without any heating.
2 Q. In other words, the fact that your husband was not an extreme
3 nationalist made him a suspicious person in the eyes of the military
4 authorities. Is that what you're saying?
5 A. Well, maybe you could put it that way. I cannot claim that with
6 certainly, but he was being ignored.
7 Q. In your earlier testimony - I'd like to clarify this - you said
8 that Milorad Krnojelac called you from the KP Dom.
9 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters note that the witness is calling
10 out to someone there, saying, "Sir, sir."
11 A. I do apologise. I did not hear your question at all.
12 MS. KUO:
13 Q. I'm interested in something you said in your earlier testimony,
14 and I would like to make sure that I have not misunderstood you.
15 You referred to a telephone call that Milorad Krnojelac made
16 before you departed that morning, and you said that he'd made the call
17 from the KP Dom. Did he make the call that morning at 6.30 from the
18 KP Dom?
19 A. To be quite honest, I don't know. Maybe he was calling from his
20 home. I never gave it any thought. I don't know.
21 Q. But you told us in court that it was from KP Dom. Why did you say
22 that? Because he was at the KP Dom when he called that morning; right?
23 A. I don't know where he was that morning. I said he called me from
24 the KP Dom when he told me that he had arranged it, and he said that
25 matter is arranged and it will be done at such-and-such an hour. And
Page 7052
1 where he called from that time, that morning, I don't know. I never
2 asked.
3 Q. All right. The trip from Foca to Scepan Polje went without any
4 problems; right? You weren't stopped or delayed?
5 A. As far as I am concerned personally, I was most afraid before we
6 got through Brod. After we passed Brod and that checkpoint, we put the
7 bags in the trunk and the ladies continued in the seats.
8 Q. But you arrived at Scepan Polje before 9.30 that morning; right?
9 A. Yes. I arrived so that I could take the Montenegrin bus to
10 Podgorica, which left at 1000 hours. At 10.00, the bus departed, and we
11 arrived sometime before that, and we had some refreshments, had a rest,
12 and so on.
13 Q. The Sabanovics and you did not have any problems crossing that
14 border; right? You didn't have to ask special permission of policemen,
15 did you?
16 A. No.
17 Q. And the driver didn't have to help you or the Sabanovics to cross
18 the border, did he?
19 A. No. No. That's why I accompanied them, precisely, because I was
20 a Montenegrin myself, so that they wouldn't have any problems on the
21 border.
22 Q. So the driver didn't have to cross a bridge on foot to ask the
23 police at the border if the women could pass; right? He never did that?
24 It wasn't necessary.
25 A. I don't know. He left his car before the bridge, precisely on the
Page 7053
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Page 7054
1 border between Bosnia and Montenegro, and he left, whereas we continued on
2 foot. It's not a long way. We carried those two bags. Hajrija went
3 slowly because she was ill. And then the driver came back. He had bought
4 a box of biscuits or something and brought us. And whether he had talked
5 to the police or not, I really haven't got a clue.
6 Q. The driver left before the bus, the 10.00 bus came, right, or did
7 he see you on the bus and then leave?
8 A. No, he wasn't there. We sat alone, three of us, and waited, and
9 he had already gone.
10 Q. You didn't see him go have drinks with the police at that border,
11 right? He simply got back in the car and went to Foca?
12 A. At that time, there was no police in the spot where he left the
13 car, because we had to go on foot for perhaps about 500 metres across
14 Montenegrin territory to reach Scepan Polje and the Montenegrin police
15 checkpoint which was there.
16 Q. You went to see your relatives in Montenegro, and you stayed how
17 long with them?
18 A. The very next day I went back.
19 Q. When you went back to Foca, you went back by yourself; right?
20 A. I went by bus to Scepan Polje, and from thereon, I waited for a
21 car which went that way, whatever. A car came by driven by an elderly man
22 who stopped and picked me up, and that's how I reached Foca.
23 Q. The car that stopped, was that somebody that you had already set
24 up an appointment for him to pick you up and drive you back to Foca or was
25 it a lift?
Page 7055
1 A. It was a lift. I had even spoken to the women who worked in that
2 cafe on the border crossing, and I talked to them about the possibility of
3 spending the night there in case I don't find anything.
4 Q. You told us earlier that Milorad Krnojelac expressed some concern
5 about the third woman, the third Muslim woman, Nedziba. Nedziba herself
6 did not say that she wanted to leave Foca; right?
7 A. No, she didn't want to leave Foca at that time. And Milorad told
8 me that if I should ever have that problem, I should tell him so and he
9 will see if he can do something. He wasn't certain, but he said he would
10 see if he could do something.
11 Q. Nedziba is a Muslim woman; right?
12 A. Of course, yes.
13 Q. It never came to pass that Mr. Krnojelac had to help Nedziba or
14 you had to go to him to ask to have Nedziba taken out; right?
15 A. No, because it turned out quite differently. A neighbour of ours
16 who had his own piece of land towards Scepan Polje - and there was a truck
17 which went that way - this neighbour of ours who lived next door to
18 Nedziba, and he was even a member of the SDS, I should say, but he knew
19 Nedziba as a good, honest woman. He found this lift, and my husband and
20 he took her to Montenegro, to my family, where she spent about 15 days,
21 and then she went to an acquaintance who is our best man, our kum, in
22 Belgrade, and that is where she is now, as far as I know.
23 Q. Ms. Bogdanovic, I'd like to ask you about whether you know Milorad
24 Krnojelac's house was burned. You know that at the beginning of the war
25 his house was burned down; right?
Page 7056
1 A. I know. It's not only his house that burnt, but several other
2 houses in that part of town.
3 Q. And when you learned about this, you and your family gave the
4 Krnojelacs clothing, right, to supplement what was lost during the fire?
5 A. Yes.
6 MS. KUO: No further questions.
7 JUDGE HUNT: Re-examination, Mr. Bakrac?
8 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, the witness hasn't
9 finished her answer, but let the transcript reflect nevertheless that she
10 said he was left without a thing. That's what the witness said after
11 Ms. Kuo said, "No further questions." Her full answer was: "Yes, he was
12 left without anything."
13 JUDGE HUNT: I should explain to you something which you are
14 probably aware of anyway, that the sound coming in from this remote source
15 is appalling and that the translators are having grave difficulties
16 hearing what was said. So that if something was said while Ms. Kuo was
17 still speaking, it's fairly clear that it would be lost. You may be able
18 to hear it pretty clearly, but they are also interpreting at the same
19 time. So if it has been missed out, it is not the fault of the
20 interpreters. Now, do you want to re-examine?
21 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] No, Your Honours. I didn't say it
22 was the fault of the interpreters. In any case, I will ask in my redirect
23 examination.
24 Re-examined by Mr. Bakrac:
25 Q. Ma'am, my learned friend asked you whether his house had burnt and
Page 7057
1 whether you had helped Mr. Krnojelac. What was your answer?
2 A. I answered that his house had burnt, that it was not only his
3 house in that part of town which had burnt, but several houses, and that
4 he was left without a thing.
5 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes. Thank you. The
6 transcript did record what you said.
7 I have no further questions of this witness. Thank you.
8 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you, madam, for giving evidence and for
9 attending to do so. You are now free to leave.
10 [The witness's testimony via videolink concluded]
11 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour --
12 JUDGE HUNT: Yes, Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff.
13 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: As we are waiting for the next witness, I
14 would like to address the matter that you raised yesterday in relation to
15 the so-called exchanges and disappearances.
16 JUDGE HUNT: Yes.
17 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: We see these events under Count 1,
18 persecution, only, and not under murder, because we made a very clear
19 distinction between what happened in the KP Dom as such, or started to
20 happen, like beatings or things like this, and ended in killings, and we
21 made a clear distinction to those things where the people were taken out
22 without being maltreated first and disappeared, and we are not sure what
23 actually happened to them. So this is only caught under the count
24 persecution, and we even addressed it in the Pre-Trial brief, where we
25 said that we make no distinction between real exchanges and fake
Page 7058
1 exchanges. We consider it the same. We put it under deportation and that
2 kind.
3 JUDGE HUNT: Yes, we saw that, but we wondered whether you were
4 trying to put it under something else as well. But thank you very much
5 for that information.
6 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: No, Your Honour.
7 JUDGE HUNT: Now, sir, would you please take the solemn
8 declaration that the -- I'll start that again. Would you please make the
9 solemn declaration which the Court deputy is showing you.
10 WITNESS: SVETOZAR BOGDANOVIC
11 [Witness answered through interpreter]
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I officially declare that I will
13 speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
14 [Witness testifies via videolink]
15 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you, sir. Please sit down.
16 Yes, Mr. Bakrac.
17 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.
18 Examined by Mr. Bakrac:
19 Q. Good morning, sir. Can you hear me?
20 A. Yes. Good morning.
21 Q. First of all, I shall tell you something that I say to every
22 witness, and that is: Since we both speak the same language and since we
23 are experiencing certain trouble with telephone lines, I should ask you to
24 make a brief pause after you hear my question and start answering only
25 after a pause. Can you hear me?
Page 7059
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Page 7060
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Can you please tell me your name and surname.
3 A. I'm Svetozar Bogdanovic.
4 Q. Where were you born and when?
5 A. Excuse me. I just wanted to add that my nickname is Bela. I was
6 born on the 20th of January, 1937, in Pluzine, the republic of Montenegro.
7 Q. Sir, please tell me: What is your occupation?
8 A. I am retired presently and I used to be an economist.
9 Q. Please tell me: Since what year have you lived in Foca?
10 A. From the 1st of September, 1959 until October 1996.
11 Q. Did you also work in Foca in this period, and where?
12 A. I did work in Foca. My first job, starting from the 1st of
13 September, 1959, was in the forestry and industrial enterprise of Maglic.
14 Q. I'll make a brief pause for interpretation and then I'll
15 continue. You can go on.
16 A. From there I transferred to the medical centre in Foca, where I
17 worked from 1960 to 1974. And from 1974, I lived in the company of
18 Hidrogradnja, which is hydro systems construction of Sarajevo, the unit
19 called Buk Bijela, and then I transferred to the Privredna Banka, the head
20 office in Foca where I worked from 1976.
21 Q. Thank you, sir. Please tell me, do you have a criminal record?
22 A. No. I've never been before a court before, not even as a witness,
23 and I have no criminal record.
24 Q. Sir, please tell us, do you know Milorad Krnojelac?
25 A. Yes, I know Milorad Krnojelac and his wife Slavica.
Page 7061
1 Q. Since when have you known them?
2 A. I have known Mr. Krnojelac since 1974, and I've known him all the
3 time that I've been in Foca, that I lived in Foca.
4 Q. Did Mr. Krnojelac work together with your wife?
5 A. Yes. He worked first as a teacher and then he was also the
6 principal of the Veselin Maselsa primary school where my wife worked her
7 entire service until her retirement.
8 Q. At the time when the war in Foca began, when military operations
9 started, where did you and your wife live?
10 A. We lived in 19 Borisa Kidrica Street, a building which is called
11 the hospital building in Donje Polje. That's the neighbourhood called
12 Donje Polje, a part of Foca.
13 Q. Is it a neighbourhood which had a majority Muslim population?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. When the war operations just started, was that area held,
16 controlled by the Muslim forces?
17 A. Yes. As far as I know, they held that part of town in the
18 beginning of combat operations.
19 Q. In view of the fact that this part of town was controlled by
20 troops of Muslim ethnicity, did anyone approach you with requests for
21 assistance?
22 A. What is the meaning of your question? What kind of assistance do
23 you mean?
24 Q. Did any neighbours of yours offer you any assistance at that
25 moment?
Page 7062
1 A. Yes. Our neighbours, lady neighbours, Hajrija Sabanovic and her
2 daughter Mervana, invited us to move in with them in order to be safer,
3 but we rejected that offer, and we suggested that they move in with us
4 instead. And our houses were very close, across the road from each other,
5 so they moved in with us.
6 Q. Can you tell me why they moved in with you?
7 A. Since we had known one another for decades and we were very good
8 neighbours, we got along very well, they thought, they felt that they
9 should protect us against provocations that could possibly happen in a
10 chaos like that.
11 Q. [No interpretation]
12 A. Yes, they remained.
13 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters note, we have to repeat this
14 segment, this question and answer. The microphone wasn't on.
15 JUDGE HUNT: Would you repeat it, please, Mr. Bakrac?
16 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation]
17 Q. After the combat operations stopped, did your neighbours move back
18 to their own apartments?
19 A. They would occasionally go back to their apartment and stay
20 there.
21 Q. Those neighbours of yours, did they decide at one point to leave
22 Foca? Do you know that?
23 A. Yes, I know that. They decided to leave Foca -- can you hear me?
24 They decided to leave -- hello?
25 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] There seems to be interference on the
Page 7063
1 line. I cannot hear his answer at all.
2 A. Can you hear me now?
3 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation]
4 Q. Yes, I can hear you now. Can you please be so kind as to repeat
5 your entire answer as to my question whether they decided at one point to
6 leave Foca?
7 A. They did decide at one point to leave Foca, and they approached
8 us, asking for our help in that matter.
9 Q. And did you help them, and if so, how?
10 A. They told us a story, and it was true, that they had relatives in
11 Montenegro, in a place which is nowadays called Berane, and they said they
12 wanted to go to Berane. And we made it possible for them -- or it was my
13 wife who made it possible for them, although we agreed on this together,
14 my wife and I, to leave for Montenegro.
15 Q. And who did you turn to for help?
16 A. My wife and I were discussing how it would be best to take them
17 out of town to the border at Scepan Polje. At that time, there was no
18 regular traffic, so we had to make special arrangements. And we were
19 thinking, Who would be the best person whom we could confide in and who
20 could help us arrange this trip? My wife decided, and she had agreed with
21 me about this, to turn to Milorad Krnojelac, a man of high moral quality,
22 because she could confide in him without any fear.
23 Q. You said a man of high moral qualities. Did you know whether
24 Milorad Krnojelac had any nationalist prejudice at the time in addition to
25 being a man of high moral qualities?
Page 7064
1 A. Milorad Krnojelac, whom I have known since 1974, as I said, mostly
2 through my wife -- I was a worker in the metal processing base. And Foca
3 is a small town. We all knew each other, Milorad Krnojelac and his entire
4 family, and everybody knows that his wife Slavica is Croat by ethnicity.
5 In any case, my wife and I never ever noticed in him any nationalist
6 prejudice or any misgivings or hatred toward members of different
7 ethnicities.
8 Q. Sir, may I ask you one thing? You are speaking very fast, and we
9 have interference on the lines. Will you just slow down a little?
10 A. All right.
11 Q. Do you know when the war conflict ended in Foca?
12 A. As far as I can remember, sometime around the 18th of April,
13 1992. Approximately a day before that or a day after that.
14 Q. After that, did these women address you with this request?
15 A. No, not immediately. Not just after the war operations ended in
16 town itself. As far as I can remember, they got out on the 1st of July,
17 1992.
18 Q. Are you sure it is the 1st of July, 1992, or do you allow for the
19 possibility of this having been earlier or later?
20 A. As far as I can remember, and there are many things that a person
21 tends to forget, I mean that's what I remember. I cannot state that with
22 100 per cent certainty, but most probably it was on the 1st of July,
23 1992.
24 Q. Did you address Milorad Krnojelac or was it your wife?
25 A. My wife approached Milorad Krnojelac because Milorad Krnojelac
Page 7065
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Page 7066
1 came to the school often, since beforehand he was even president of the
2 school and then he got work obligation for where he was, and she talked to
3 him precisely because this was a man who could be trusted.
4 Q. When Milorad Krnojelac talked to her, the school year was still
5 on, wasn't it?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Thank you. Tell us, please, what did your wife say when she
8 approached Milorad Krnojelac? What did he say to her? Do you know about
9 that? Did your wife tell you of the outcome of their conversation?
10 A. Yes. My wife told me, and she said to me that he said that he
11 would try to do everything in order to carry out this obligation of his as
12 a human being, that he would provide a car and that they would agree on
13 how and when.
14 Q. Did Mr. Krnojelac do that?
15 A. Yes. And I was present on that day when -- when Ms. Hajrija
16 Sabanovic and her daughter Mervana -- she has a bachelor's degree in
17 chemistry -- I was present with regard to the car and that.
18 Q. Was any other neighbour of yours present?
19 A. Yes. A lady neighbour of ours, an ethnic Muslim, Mrs. Nedziba
20 Sirbubalo, was there too.
21 Q. Did you when Mr. Krnojelac came in front of the building?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. You were present?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Please wait for me to finish my question and then give your
Page 7067
1 answer, please.
2 A. I'm sorry.
3 Q. Were you present then?
4 A. I was present then.
5 Q. Can you tell us when Mr. Krnojelac came and whether he came on his
6 own?
7 A. He came sometime between 6.00 in the morning and 7.00 in the
8 morning. I cannot say anything more accurate than that. So it was in
9 that period, between 6.00 and 7.00 in the morning. Closer to 7.00,
10 actually. Early in the morning.
11 Q. Did Milorad Krnojelac get out of the car and did he talk to you
12 for a while? Can you remember that?
13 A. He did not talk to me at all. He was sad, and I saw that it was
14 very difficult for him, very difficult for him, probably because of this
15 kind of situation that prevailed in Foca.
16 Q. Did Mr. Krnojelac go on, or rather, could you tell me who got into
17 that car and who drove it?
18 A. A driver got into the car, and I don't know him personally. Madam
19 Hajrija got in, and her daughter, and my wife as well. Then Milorad
20 Krnojelac said goodbye to them and wished them all the best and good luck,
21 and he started crying.
22 Q. After that you parted, is that right, you and Milorad Krnojelac?
23 He went his own way and you went your own way?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And your wife, together with these two ladies and the driver, she
Page 7068
1 went in the direction of Montenegro; is that correct?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. When did your wife return from Montenegro? Can you remember that?
4 A. She returned the next day. And may I tell you about --
5 Q. It doesn't matter.
6 A. She travelled to Podgorica, via Scepan Polje to Podgorica. They
7 got a bus from Scepan Polje, which was around 10.00. I don't know when.
8 She saw them off to Podgorica, both Hajrija and Mervana, and then they
9 rested at my wife's niece's place in Podgorica. She saw them off to the
10 bus station when they departed for Berane. She saw them off to the -- she
11 saw them off to the station.
12 Q. Sorry, sir, but your wife already testified about all of these
13 details and I don't think it is necessary for you to repeat these
14 details.
15 A. Very well.
16 Q. You said that you mostly knew Milorad Krnojelac through your wife
17 and also through your own activities in town. Did you know his family?
18 A. Yes. Yes. I knew his wife in particular, since we worked in the
19 bank together for many years.
20 Q. Can you tell me what your opinion is about Mr. Krnojelac,
21 especially his family, that is to say, his wife and children?
22 A. His wife and his boys are a wonderful family. His wife is devoted
23 to her family. It's a wonderful family, and there is nothing bad that I
24 could say about that family whatsoever.
25 Q. Do you know whether they, the Krnojelac family, Milorad Krnojelac
Page 7069
1 and his family, had their house burnt down at the beginning of the war
2 conflict?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. In that respect, did you give them some help?
5 A. Yes. We gave them some bed linen, what we could set aside in
6 respect of our own things: bed linen, pillows, a TV set of ours. And when
7 his son was getting married, we gave him a jacket and shirt and tie,
8 because, as you know, their house had burnt down and all their things had
9 burnt down. They didn't have anything.
10 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Thank you, sir.
11 Those are the only questions the Defence has for this witness.
12 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you, Mr. Bakrac.
13 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Thank you.
14 JUDGE HUNT: Ms. Kuo.
15 MS. KUO: Thank you, Your Honour.
16 Cross-examined by Ms. Kuo:
17 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Bogdanovic.
18 A. Good afternoon.
19 Q. I just want to clarify something you said earlier. You said that
20 Mr. Krnojelac was principal of the elementary school. He became principal
21 in the fall of 1994, right, not before that?
22 A. I'm sorry. May I speak now?
23 Q. Yes, please.
24 A. I have known Mr. Milorad Krnojelac from 1974, since 1974, and I
25 just said that I knew him all that time, not only from the time when he
Page 7070
1 was principal of the school, and he became principal of the school later.
2 Q. Sir, you are -- what is your religion? You're an Orthodox by
3 religion; right?
4 A. I am an ethnic Montenegrin and I'm an atheist.
5 Q. You're not a Muslim or a Croat by ethnicity; right?
6 A. No. I am a Montenegrin by ethnicity, a Montenegrin.
7 Q. Now, you discussed how -- or you testified how you discussed with
8 your wife the request by the Sabanovics to leave Foca. It wasn't
9 something that your wife kept to herself and only shared with
10 Mr. Krnojelac; right? She, according to your testimony, discussed it with
11 you before coming to the conclusion to talk to Mr. Krnojelac.
12 A. Yes. I don't know whether it was before or after, but we
13 consulted as to what we could do and how we could help this family.
14 Q. You understood that what your wife was telling you about the
15 Sabanovics was something that you had to keep in confidence and not tell
16 other people; right?
17 A. No. No. It was not necessary to ask other people, since we
18 wanted to help this family, this good family, these neighbours of ours.
19 Q. And you understood that this was a dangerous situation for this
20 family, the Sabanovics; right?
21 A. No. I think that the Sabanovic family was not mistreated at all,
22 but it was their own wish. It was their own wish, and we wanted to make
23 that wish of the Sabanovic family come true.
24 Q. The wish of the Sabanovic family was to leave Foca, leave their
25 house behind and all their possessions and go somewhere else; right?
Page 7071
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Page 7072
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. You said that this particular Muslim family was not being
3 mistreated, but there were other Muslim families in Foca who were being
4 mistreated, right, where the men were taken into custody at KP Dom or the
5 houses were burned or they were in other ways felt unwelcome, made to feel
6 unwelcome in Foca; right?
7 A. Madam, I know very little about such matters. I also had work
8 obligation at the bank, where for two years every other evening I was on
9 duty from 7.00 p.m. until 7.00 a.m.
10 Q. Sir, you were a member of a non-nationalist political party;
11 right?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. That means you did not disagree with the extreme nationalism that
14 other people in Foca agreed with; right? Let me -- did you understand the
15 question? It might have been confusing.
16 A. It's not confusing. That's the kind of man I am. I never chose
17 people according to ethnicity. I was socially active for almost 30
18 years. I worked in sports organisations. I did not belong to any
19 nationalist party, and I personally know that Milorad Krnojelac was not a
20 member of the SDS. It is well known that in Foca, there were two
21 nationalist parties, namely, the SDS and the SDA. I was a member of the
22 SK movement for Yugoslavia, that is to say, whose underlying idea was to
23 preserve the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia so that there could not
24 be a bloody conflict, which did actually happen afterwards.
25 Q. As a result of your involvement in the moderate political
Page 7073
1 activities rather than the extreme nationalist parties, did you feel that
2 you were treated differently or that you suffered as a result when the
3 extreme nationalists gained control of Foca?
4 A. Well, let me tell you, there wasn't much choice. I personally,
5 until the present day, feel a sadness. Why did the former Yugoslavia
6 break up? But ...
7 Q. Sir, my question was how you felt about the way you were treated.
8 I understand how you feel about the entire situation, but my question was
9 only as a result of your moderate political activity, did you feel that
10 you suffered as a consequence at the hands of the extremists?
11 A. Well, I noticed that I was treated a bit differently, but I did
12 not have any unpleasant consequences, except there was general fear among
13 all citizens of both ethnic groups, especially during the war operations.
14 Q. We're talking about the time -- I don't know whether, when you say
15 "war operations," you mean the ten days or so in April or the time after
16 that. Did this general fear persist after the fighting in Foca itself
17 stopped?
18 A. War operations? Are you referring to my fear or -- I mean one
19 question. Are you referring to my own fear or something else?
20 Q. Sir, I'm sorry. I'm trying to clarify your answer, and you had
21 discussed a general fear that everyone -- I think you said that everyone
22 in the town felt. So my question was whether that general fear was only
23 present during the actual fighting in Foca in April or did you mean that
24 it continued through the summer of 1992, through the fall, through 1993,
25 and so on?
Page 7074
1 A. During the war operations, that is to say, until the 18th of
2 April, until the end of the war operations, that is --
3 Q. I'm just trying to get it clarified because I'd like to make this
4 clear. Some people call the war operations just the time during April,
5 from the 8th to the 18th, and some people talk about the war operations as
6 lasting until the Dayton Peace Accord. So I'm asking what you meant when
7 you used those words.
8 A. I mean the fear from the 8th until the 18th of April. And you
9 know, since I do not have any information about war operations at the
10 front line, because I did not have any information about that since the
11 front line was in some zones - I don't know - outside of Foca - I'm not
12 aware of that - so I cannot say just off the top of my head whether there
13 was fear among other citizens. I carried out my work obligation at the
14 bank - I said that - where for two years I was on duty in the bank every
15 second night, and then I did my regular banking job because the bank
16 started working immediately after the war operations.
17 Q. Thank you, sir. When you discussed asking Mr. Krnojelac for help,
18 you discussed this with your wife. Your wife came to the conclusion that
19 he was the best person for her to talk to for two reasons; right? First
20 that he was someone she could confide in, but also because he was someone
21 who could actually arrange for this trip to happen; right?
22 A. My wife approached, precisely, Milorad Krnojelac mostly because
23 this is a man who could be confided in, who could do this favour.
24 Q. And when your wife told you that Mr. Krnojelac actually had made
25 arrangements for this trip, did she also tell you that she was going to go
Page 7075
1 with the Sabanovics to Montenegro, that she would go there to visit her
2 relatives there?
3 A. My wife went mostly in order for the Sabanovic ladies to cross
4 over into Montenegro as safely as possible. After staying with her
5 relatives in Podgorica, with her niece, that is, I already said that they
6 had lunch, they had coffee, and then my wife saw them off at the bus
7 station in Podgorica, and they went to Berane, to the Sabanovic family.
8 MS. KUO: Your Honours, it's 1.00.
9 JUDGE HUNT: I give up trying to work out what the error of
10 parallax is, but we'll adjourn now until 2.30.
11 --- Luncheon recess taken at 1.00 p.m.
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Page 7076
1 --- On resuming at 2.32 p.m.
2 JUDGE HUNT: Ms. Kuo.
3 MS. KUO: Thank you, Your Honour.
4 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Bogdanovic.
5 A. Good afternoon.
6 Q. You testified earlier that you understood when your wife had the
7 conversation with Mr. Krnojelac, that the school year was still on. It's
8 true that the school year was going through the summer and your wife was
9 working all through the summer of 1992 as well; right?
10 A. I don't know what you mean, but considering that after the end of
11 the school year there are other things to be done, other affairs to be
12 taken care of, she did work, because she was the school secretary.
13 Q. And you didn't mean to say that you knew that this conversation
14 took place either before or after students stopped attending the school;
15 right? I mean, that had no significance for you in terms of the date.
16 A. To tell you the truth, I don't consider that to be important, and
17 whether it happened before or after, I cannot confirm one way or another.
18 Q. Do you remember how many days before July 1st, when you said the
19 Sabanovic women left Foca, do you remember how many days before that you
20 and your wife discussed making this request to Mr. Krnojelac?
21 A. No. As far as I remember, it was on the 1st of July that they
22 expressed their wish and that we had this discussion, and my wife confided
23 in Milorad Krnojelac and asked him for advice, what to do about this
24 problem.
25 Q. I understand that this all took place very quickly, but it didn't
Page 7077
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Page 7078
1 all happen on the same day; right? Because the departure on July 1st was
2 actually very early in the morning, so the preparations would have to have
3 take place sometime before that.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. But you don't remember how many days that was?
6 A. I cannot remember, and I cannot say precisely how many days
7 before.
8 Q. When your wife told you that she was going to go with these two
9 women to Montenegro, were you concerned at all about her safety?
10 A. No.
11 Q. As far as you were concerned, that wasn't a dangerous route;
12 right? It was quite normal for people to take the route from Foca to
13 Scepan Polje?
14 A. You know, it wasn't very popular to take that road, considering
15 that there were police outposts there, and there was no public
16 transportation.
17 Q. But there was no reason for you to be afraid about your wife's
18 safety; right?
19 A. Of course I was, but I wasn't afraid of anything terrible
20 happening.
21 Q. Do you know whether your wife needed a permit to go to visit her
22 relatives in Montenegro, or was it something that she simply could do as
23 long as she had transportation?
24 A. I don't know about that. You see, we didn't discuss it at all,
25 and I don't even know whether she took that permit.
Page 7079
1 Q. On the morning of July 1st when the women left, Mr. Krnojelac came
2 with a driver in a car early in the morning; right?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Do you know where he had come from? Did he come from the KP Dom?
5 A. I don't know where he came from. I just saw him in front of our
6 building with that driver.
7 Q. The driver was a guard from the KP Dom, right, a policeman?
8 A. I don't know the man at all, and I don't know his occupation. I
9 don't know whether he was a guard or he was a technical staff or
10 anything.
11 Q. Mr. Krnojelac didn't introduce him since he was the person who
12 would be taking your wife to Montenegro?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Do you know whose car that was?
15 A. No. No.
16 Q. What kind of car was it?
17 A. I don't know. I think it was a Yugoslav-made vehicle, a Zastava
18 maybe or something like that.
19 Q. When the Sabanovics were in the car, they actually had to crouch
20 in the car and they were covered with bags, right, as they left where you
21 were?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. So from the outside, you couldn't actually tell that there were
24 two women in the back seat at all; right?
25 A. Yes.
Page 7080
1 Q. After the car with the women and the driver left, where did
2 Mr. Krnojelac go, or did he stay with you?
3 A. No. He left, as far as I remember, for the KP Dom or to town. I
4 can't say now exactly.
5 Q. At this point, you knew that Mr. Krnojelac was the warden of
6 KP Dom? He had already been appointed as the temporary warden of KP Dom;
7 right?
8 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters did not get this answer. There was
9 a brief interruption.
10 MS. KUO:
11 Q. Mr. Bogdanovic, can you repeat your answer? The interpreters
12 couldn't get it because of an interruption.
13 A. Yes. I knew he was warden of the KP Dom, that he was the formal
14 warden of the KP Dom.
15 Q. During the war operations, your house was not burned; right?
16 A. No, it wasn't burnt down, but three shells fell on our roof.
17 Q. And you testified earlier about giving Mr. Krnojelac's family bed
18 linens, a TV and clothing as well because his house had burned down?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. You mentioned specifically --
21 A. Yes. His house had burned down.
22 Q. You mentioned specifically giving clothes to his son, but you gave
23 clothes for the entire family, including Mr. Krnojelac himself; right?
24 A. We gave clothes to his son who was getting married at the time,
25 and those clothes belonged to my son. We gave some bed linen and one TV
Page 7081
1 set that we had in our apartment.
2 Q. But you gave -- my question was: You gave clothing not only to
3 Mr. Krnojelac's son but also other members of his family, including
4 Mr. Krnojelac himself; right?
5 A. As far as I remember, I gave him one of my jackets. That's what I
6 gave him, nothing else, except for the other things that I mentioned.
7 Q. And just to clarify, when you said one of your jackets, that was
8 not a military jacket; right? It was a civilian jacket?
9 A. Yes. It's a jacket which is a part of my own civilian clothing,
10 because I never wore a uniform. I never put on a uniform during the
11 entire war.
12 Q. And before I leave the topic of the departure on the day of July
13 1st, what colour was the car that your wife and the Sabanovic's left in?
14 A. You must believe me, I cannot remember the colour.
15 Q. That's fine. Mr. Bogdanovic, your compulsory work order during
16 the war was for the same job that you had at the bank, the Privredna Bank;
17 right? That was the job you had before the war and during the war that
18 was your compulsory work order as well; right?
19 A. My compulsory work order was issued by the Secretariat for
20 National Defence, and that is considered to be, at the same time, my
21 wartime assignment. And since I was getting on even then, my work duty
22 was to be a guard on duty at the bank every other night from 7.00 p.m. to
23 7.00 a.m., to guard the building of the bank.
24 Q. Was that the job that you had before the war or did you do
25 something else in the bank from 1976 until 1992?
Page 7082
1 A. I worked in the computer information processing centre of the
2 bank, and for a while I worked in the section which dealt with microfilms,
3 with documentation, microfilming of documentation.
4 Q. While you worked at the bank, before the war, did you know someone
5 named Aziz Sahanovic [phoen]?
6 A. Sahanovic? Yes, I knew him. I think it's not Sahanovic. I think
7 it's Sahinovic.
8 Q. I think you're right, sir. That's the person I meant. I
9 mispronounced it. I'm sorry. Now, he was a Muslim man; right?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. And he also worked with foreign currency; isn't that right?
12 A. Yes. He worked in the sector dealing with household accounts.
13 That's what it was called. And that sector's job included operations with
14 foreign exchange.
15 Q. And at some point he was accused of taking 30.000 or 36.000
16 Deutschmarks from the bank; isn't that right? He was accused of that.
17 A. I never heard about that affair. If that happened before the war
18 or not, I don't know, but I'm surprised to hear about that. Where does it
19 come from?
20 Q. I'm just asking whether you heard about the accusation. I'm not
21 asking you to make any comment about whether it was true or not.
22 Are you aware that Mr. Sahinovic was taken to the KP Dom?
23 A. No.
24 Q. Do you know what happened to him during the war?
25 A. No. How would I know? I was outside of it, outside of all the
Page 7083
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Page 7084
1 events.
2 Q. You've told us earlier that Foca is a small town, and I'd like to
3 know whether you ever heard that Mr. Sahinovic was beaten up very severely
4 at the KP Dom and then disappeared.
5 A. No, because I had no contacts whatsoever. I didn't get any
6 broader information. I don't know who I could have learned it from. I
7 never did.
8 Q. But during the war, you yourself never saw Mr. Sahinovic in Foca;
9 right?
10 A. No.
11 Q. When you were working at the Privredna Bank, did you know Milorad
12 Krnojelac's wife, Slavisa Krnojelac?
13 A. Yes. We socialised for many years before the war. We were
14 together for many years before the war and I knew them well.
15 Q. Can you tell us when Mrs. Krnojelac worked at the bank and what
16 she did there?
17 A. She worked in the bookkeeping section of the bank, and from what
18 time, I really couldn't say. I can only say that she was one of the most
19 conscientious employees and she did a wonderful job.
20 Q. You mentioned that your wartime assignment at the bank entailed
21 your guarding at the night-times. Did you wear a military uniform while
22 you were on duty?
23 A. No. I never wore a military uniform, nor did I ever carry a
24 weapon.
25 Q. So you considered this position that you held during the war as a
Page 7085
1 civilian position; right?
2 A. How that was treated depended on many factors. Work duty was a
3 sort of semi-civilian duty, and mine was to guard the premises of the
4 bank.
5 Q. But in other words, during this wartime, the lines between
6 civilian and military were blurred; right? There was no clear distinction
7 between what was strictly military and what was strictly civilian. There
8 was a bit of a mix; right?
9 A. I cannot make a judgement on that. All I know is my job that I
10 did. I don't know what other people did and what positions they held.
11 Q. My point is: Even your job that you held, you're not really clear
12 about whether it was a civilian or a military position, were you, because
13 it was a little bit of both.
14 A. Well, it was less military than -- it was not military at all. It
15 was just to guard the premises.
16 Q. But you were assigned to that position by the Secretariat for
17 National Defence, so there was a military component to it; right?
18 A. Well, there were no other organisations anyway, so they issued the
19 decisions or orders related to work duty. There were no other functioning
20 structures, civilian structures in town which would give assignments.
21 Q. So basically the town was being run by military authorities. Is
22 that what you're saying?
23 A. I cannot say about that, because I was never involved with those
24 structures, and I cannot make a judgement on how those authorities could
25 be defined.
Page 7086
1 Q. Your understanding, if you had not obeyed your work order, was
2 that you would be punished by the military for disobeying one of their
3 orders; right?
4 A. Yes. It was very risky not to comply with that compulsory work
5 order. And from what I later learned, it was the case with all three
6 ethnic groups in Bosnia.
7 Q. Just my last question. It didn't matter, actually, that you never
8 wore a military uniform. You were still under the military authority;
9 right?
10 A. Well, I don't know if you can define it that way, but -- in fact,
11 I don't think I can give you an answer about what the actual situation
12 was.
13 Q. I'd like to ask you a few more questions about Mrs. Krnojelac.
14 You mentioned that she worked at the bank before the war. Did she work at
15 the bank during the war?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. In what capacity?
18 A. During the war she worked because immediately after the
19 termination of war operations in town, the bank opened. And since our
20 bank operations were minimised and many sectors didn't work at all, she
21 worked partly in the bookkeeping sector, and her job was also to retrieve
22 data from terminals.
23 Q. When did she begin working? During the war, I meant.
24 A. Just after the war operations ended in the territory of our
25 municipality, the municipality of Foca.
Page 7087
1 Q. You mentioned that during the wartime, that the operations of the
2 bank were minimised. Was it still functioning as a bank, just that things
3 were scaled down, or was it not really functioning any more temporarily?
4 A. I cannot say exactly on which date in the month of May the bank
5 reopened officially and all employees were placed on work duty, but all
6 employees, and especially women, were obligated to come and work at the
7 counters, pay out salaries, retrieve data at terminals, and operate the
8 computer information centre.
9 Q. So salaries were being paid even though it was wartime; right?
10 A. Yes.
11 MS. KUO: No further questions.
12 A. No. Hello?
13 MS. KUO:
14 Q. I'm sorry, sir. You wanted to say something more?
15 A. Yes. Not salaries but cheques. There were cheque-books that you
16 got for your current account, and with those cheques you could buy things
17 in shops. There was no money in circulation at the time.
18 Q. I understand that the normal currency was not being used, but what
19 you're saying is that people who were entitled to salaries got credit for
20 the salary in the form of cheques or notations in a cheque-book and that
21 was valid for use to buy things; right?
22 A. Yes. With those cheques you could buy the barest necessities,
23 especially food, in certain shops if anything was available at all. But
24 at one point, there was no -- nothing to buy at all.
25 MS. KUO: No further questions.
Page 7088
1 JUDGE HUNT: Re-examination, Mr. Bakrac.
2 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour, very briefly.
3 Re-examined by Mr. Bakrac:
4 Q. Sir?
5 A. Go ahead.
6 Q. In response to my colleague's questions a few minutes ago, you
7 said that on the 1st of July, these two ladies that we were speaking of
8 expressed their wish to leave Foca. Does that mean or, rather, do you
9 allow for the possibility that they left Foca few days after that?
10 A. No. It is probably -- how should I put this? Before the 1st of
11 July, they expressed their wish, they expressed their wish to go, to go to
12 meet up with their own people in Montenegro.
13 Q. Sir, the journey we mentioned from Foca to Scepan Polje that they
14 were supposed to make, before they left, do you know whether along that
15 road there had been some incidents?
16 A. I'm not aware of any.
17 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Thank you. No further questions,
18 Your Honour.
19 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you, sir, for coming to give evidence before
20 the Tribunal. You are now free to leave.
21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you too.
22 JUDGE HUNT: We'll have Mr. Krnojelac back, please.
23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Can I see him?
24 JUDGE HUNT: For the sake of the witness who is still sitting in
25 the remote studio, it should be explained that it's not Mr. Krnojelac, the
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Page 7090
1 defendant, but his brother who is giving evidence at the moment.
2 [The witness's testimony via videolink concluded]
3 [The witness entered court]
4 JUDGE HUNT: Please sit down, sir.
5 Yes, Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, you continue your cross-examination.
6 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Thank you, Your Honour.
7 WITNESS: ARSENIJE KRNOJELAC [Resumed]
8 [Witness answered through interpreter]
9 Cross-examined by Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff: [Continued]
10 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Krnojelac.
11 A. Good afternoon.
12 Q. Sir, at the beginning of your testimony, you told us that you were
13 born in 1935. That means you have survived the Second World War; right?
14 A. I survived it, to the extent to which I could remember it, because
15 I was very small.
16 Q. But you know that during the Second World War, prison camps
17 existed in the former Yugoslavia; right?
18 A. -- know about that.
19 Q. Did you say you know about it or you don't know about it?
20 THE INTERPRETER: The witness said, "I don't know about it."
21 A. I don't know about it.
22 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:
23 Q. You have never heard about Jasenovac, where so many Serbs were
24 murdered? You haven't heard about that?
25 A. I heard about that, but perhaps I was about 15 then. There
Page 7091
1 weren't any schools in our area right after the war, so we started school
2 a bit late.
3 Q. Sir, for the people in the former Yugoslavia, for all people
4 there, all ethnicities, the history was always an important factor; right?
5 A. History has been an important factor for those who studied it.
6 Q. You, as a Serb, you knew and learned afterwards, when you were no
7 longer a child, you learned afterwards how much the Serb people have
8 suffered in the camp in Jasenovac; right?
9 A. Heard, I did not, except when television came into being. If I
10 saw what I saw, then that was that.
11 Q. Today you know about Jasenovac and that so many Serb civilians
12 were murdered there. You are aware of this, aren't you?
13 A. I am aware of this, but I don't know how many.
14 Q. Sir, and because of your knowledge of what happened in Jasenovac
15 and in other places during the Second World War, you knew that it would be
16 a very difficult task to be a prison warden during a war; right? You knew
17 that.
18 A. Temporary warden, like Milorad? I don't think that was difficult
19 for him. He was appointed temporary warden and director for the economy.
20 Q. Sir, we were talking in general terms. You knew that to be a
21 warden of a prison during a war situation, like in the Second World War,
22 is a difficult position. That was clear; right? That was clear.
23 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, objection.
24 JUDGE HUNT: Yes, Mr. Bakrac.
25 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] I think that the witness has answered
Page 7092
1 this question. This is a general question for the witness to make
2 assumptions and to draw parallels between the Second World War and this,
3 what was happening. He came to testify about things he knows, not to
4 present his opinions and thoughts about history and whatever. Ultimately
5 he answered the question. He said, "My brother was involved in the
6 economy."
7 JUDGE HUNT: Mr. Bakrac, a cross-examiner is not obliged to accept
8 the first question which a witness gives to a -- the first answer which a
9 witness gives to a question, and I think I can see where
10 Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff is headed. I don't propose to explain it to you,
11 because to do so would also explain it to the witness. But in my view,
12 this is proper cross-examination.
13 Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff.
14 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:
15 Q. Sir, you did not yet answer my question. I asked you, in general
16 terms: You knew that the position of the warden would be a difficult one
17 during the war, given all the historical facts?
18 A. Most probably a warden who is appointed warden during a war, that
19 would be more difficult, but since Milorad was not appointed as such, a
20 warden, I have nothing to say.
21 Q. You knew that a warden, even during a war, would have to have the
22 duty to protect the prisoners and the detainees; right?
23 A. I knew that if he was to be responsible for those detainees.
24 Q. Yes. And you also thought it possible that such a warden might
25 get involved in illegal conduct and would have to be accountable for that
Page 7093
1 later on; right?
2 A. He, as himself, could not be held accountable because he was not
3 in charge. He was responsible for the economy. He --
4 Q. Sir --
5 A. -- if on his part --
6 Q. Sir, we are not talking about your brother. We are talking about
7 the warden of whatever camp. The camp warden could get involved in
8 illegal conduct when he does not protect the detainees or prisoners;
9 right? You were aware of this fact?
10 A. I am not aware that he was warden of a camp.
11 Q. Sir, I told you already we were not talking about your brother
12 right now. We are talking about your knowledge of a position of a warden
13 of a camp and what you expected.
14 You are aware that a warden who violates his duty to protect the
15 prisoners in his camp might be held accountable for this later on; right?
16 That was clear to you?
17 A. It's not clear to me personally, this kind of job that this warden
18 had, that he would have to be held responsible for a camp that was made in
19 the Dom.
20 Q. Sir, the camp commander of Jasenovac, he's responsible for the
21 Serbs murdered there; right? No doubt about that.
22 A. I don't know who could have been responsible.
23 Q. Sir, my question was rather simple. The commander of the death
24 camp Jasenovac is accountable for what happened there, isn't he? And he
25 was actually on the stand quite recently in Croatia. You know that;
Page 7094
1 right?
2 A. I don't know. I did not study or did I finish such schools. Had
3 I finished such a school, I would have been a Judge or more than that.
4 Q. Sir, would -- in case your brother would have been the warden of
5 the entire KP Dom and responsible for the detainees, he would be
6 accountable if such detainees would have been murdered; right?
7 A. If he had been, yes, but since he had not been, then he cannot be
8 accountable either.
9 Q. And these responsibilities of the warden, that he would have, that
10 is why you find the decision of your brother unwise to become the
11 temporary warden, isn't it?
12 A. My brother was appointed by the municipality, the executive
13 committee. They appointed him director and temporary warden in order to
14 get the economy going.
15 Q. Sir, what you feared what could have happened during a war, in a
16 prison, actually happened in the KP Dom, did it not? Detainees were
17 abused and ill-treated in the KP Dom; right?
18 A. I don't know who mistreated them and abused them.
19 Q. But you know that the detainees in the KP Dom, the Muslim
20 detainees, were mistreated, beaten, and even killed; right? You were
21 aware of this?
22 A. I'm not aware of that.
23 Q. You knew that honest, civilian Muslims were detained there, and
24 you knew that it was not just; right?
25 A. I personally do not know who was there specifically by name,
Page 7095
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Page 7096
1 because generally speaking, I know very few of these people. I know that
2 they were saying that those people were Muslims.
3 Q. Yes, and that this was the only reason that they were detained
4 there. This was clear to you; right?
5 A. Please repeat that question.
6 Q. You said, "I know that they were saying that those people were
7 Muslims." And I asked you, and that was the only reason why they were
8 detained there, right, because they were Muslims?
9 A. I don't think that only Muslims were detained. The army worked
10 there. They detained people. I was not there at that moment when they
11 were detained, but there were Serbs who were detained as well.
12 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: With the help of the usher, I would like to
13 have the witness again put in front of him P456, the name sheet.
14 Q. Sir, the second name on this list, and we are not using this name,
15 we use the number 249, you said that this person was a good mechanic. You
16 knew him. He was not a criminal, but he was detained in the KP Dom
17 because he was a Muslim; right?
18 A. Was he detained because he was a Muslim or a Serb? I don't know
19 about that, but he was a good worker and mechanic.
20 Q. And you know that he was a Muslim. His name says that already.
21 A. I know. And he is not the only one. I don't have the number as
22 to how many were detained.
23 Q. Yes. And you knew that it is not right to detain citizens who
24 were not combatants; right? You knew that?
25 A. I personally did not know that they were being detained or that
Page 7097
1 they were being dismissed. I had my own concerns and problems outside the
2 KP Dom.
3 Q. Sir, your concerns related to the warden of the camp and your
4 concerns that he would be held accountable for what happened later on,
5 after the war, you expressed your concerns to detainees, to Muslim
6 detainees, did you not?
7 A. Please repeat that question.
8 Q. Your concerns about the position of the warden in the KP Dom and
9 his being accountable for what happened to the Muslims, you expressed your
10 concerns to these Muslim detainees, did you not?
11 A. I was not concerned, because he was not warden of a camp. And I
12 did not talk to anyone about such a concern either.
13 Q. You knew Mr. Lisica, nicknamed Lija, because he was a welder and
14 car mechanic, and you had dealings with the repair shop during the war, in
15 the KP Dom. You knew him; right?
16 A. I knew Lisica from the Ozren service station where I went for
17 vehicle repairs. As for the KP Dom, I saw him only once at the metalwork
18 shop, and I really did not meet up with Lisica.
19 Q. Mr. Lisica actually lived very close to Cerezluk; right?
20 A. Let me tell you, not that close. He lived further away from the
21 church. It was called Cohodor Mahala.
22 Q. So you knew where he lived. You only -- you didn't only know him
23 from Ozren, you knew where he lived?
24 A. I did not know personally where his house was. I knew that they
25 lived in an area off the cattle market, as it is known.
Page 7098
1 Q. Sir, you also saw Mr. Lisica in Cerezluk because he was friends
2 with the Kunarac family, right, with Lekso Kunarac; right?
3 A. I did not see him in Cerezluk. Lekso is not in Cerezluk. They
4 are outside Cerezluk, about 1.500 metres away from Cerezluk, and he lives
5 even further away than Lekso does.
6 Q. The Kunarac family, does this family originate from Cerezluk, or
7 do you know where they come from, from which village?
8 A. The Kunarac family, as far as I can remember, was supposed to
9 originate from Zavait.
10 Q. Mr. Lisica, you claim that you saw him only once from a distance,
11 but he was the only welder in the KP Dom; right? You know that.
12 A. I don't know whether he was the only welder. When I saw him, I
13 just passed by on the right-hand side, at the entrance to the metalwork
14 shop, and I entered the mechanic's shop to see the mechanics.
15 Q. As a driver, you have frequent contact with the mechanical
16 workshop, because they serviced the vehicles; right?
17 A. Not often. I didn't need to go there often. When the war began,
18 our vehicles were in very good condition, had been serviced very well.
19 And besides, we didn't have the spare parts to do much servicing
20 ourselves. That was done by the Ozren repair station in Brod.
21 Q. Sir, you did not only see Mr. Lisica from far away on one
22 occasion; you saw him quite often and you talked to him quite often.
23 Isn't that the truth?
24 A. I didn't see him often and I didn't talk to him. It was a rare
25 occasion -- rare occurrence for me to be within the compound at all.
Page 7099
1 Q. You talked with Mr. Lisica about your families, didn't you?
2 A. No, never, not before the war and not during the war.
3 Q. You told Mr. Lisica that your son Momo worked in the KP Dom. You
4 told him that, didn't you?
5 A. No, by no means. With persons who were convicted before the war,
6 I never talked, and let alone with those who were detained during the
7 war. I didn't want to invite any problems on my own hand.
8 Q. Sir, as we have already mentioned your son Momo, the Defence
9 investigator, Rada Sestovac-Krnojelac, that's the wife of your son; right?
10 A. I did not understand you.
11 Q. Ms. Rada Sestovac-Krnojelac is your daughter-in-law; right?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. And you are aware that she was one of the Defence investigators;
14 right?
15 A. I don't know.
16 Q. Sir, in August 1992, you told Mr. Lisica that the warden of the KP
17 Dom was your brother and that you disapproved when he took this position,
18 didn't you?
19 A. I didn't say that, and I didn't talk to Lisica. I couldn't have
20 told him that.
21 Q. Sir, you said that you did not know Mr. Ekrem Zekovic. That's
22 what you said yesterday, but that's not true.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Do you know Zeka?
25 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Just a moment. Objection, Your
Page 7100
1 Honour.
2 JUDGE HUNT: Yes, Mr. Bakrac.
3 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] The first part of my learned friend's
4 question was: "You said yesterday that you didn't know Zekovic," and then
5 after that first part of the sentence, the witness said, "Yes." And after
6 that "yes," my learned friend continued to say, "You said that yesterday,
7 but that's not true." And then the witness said again, "Yes." So the way
8 it is now, it looks as if he said that it was true. We can either rewind
9 the tape or we can clarify this with the witness now.
10 JUDGE HUNT: I understood the answer to be saying that he
11 disagreed with the assertion that it was not true. But anyway, make it
12 clear.
13 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:
14 Q. Sir, you still claim that you did not know Mr. Ekrem Zekovic;
15 right? That's what you say?
16 A. I claim that I never knew him even, nor am I aware of where he
17 worked.
18 Q. Do you know a person with the nickname Zeka?
19 A. No.
20 Q. You had never heard the name Ekrem Zekovic at all?
21 A. I never heard of Ekrem Zekovic, nor have I made any inquiries
22 about whoever's name.
23 Q. Sir, you were in the KP Dom in July 1993, weren't you?
24 A. I was.
25 Q. And on the 8th of July, 1993, Ekrem Zekovic escaped from the KP
Page 7101
1 Dom. You are aware of that.
2 A. In the month of July, 1993, I wasn't working at the KP Dom. I was
3 in my village mowing -- cutting grass.
4 Q. Sir, just a few seconds ago you confirmed that you were in the KP
5 Dom in July 1993, and now you say you were not. What is the truth?
6 A. The truth is that it is possible. I cannot remember the date now,
7 but in the end of June and beginning of July we cut grass, and after I
8 retired I was busy on my farm, and the temporary manager, Micun Jokanovic,
9 relieved me and let me go to my village to do some work, because I had
10 been on some very long trips before that.
11 Q. Sir, you returned to the KP Dom after your mowing season; right?
12 You returned. You continued to work in the KP Dom.
13 A. I returned. Yes, I did.
14 Q. But you claim that you never heard that Ekrem Zekovic escaped from
15 the KP Dom and was recaptured? Do you really claim that?
16 A. I maintain that because I wasn't really in the know, and I tried
17 to stick to my own job as a driver.
18 Q. Nobody told you, when you came to the KP Dom after the 8th of
19 July, of what had happened in relation to the escapee?
20 A. I cannot think of any reason why a driver would be told about
21 events, any events at the KP Dom.
22 Q. Sir, in autumn 1992, you spoke with Mr. Zekovic, Zeka, and
23 Mr. Zekovic asked you what was happening in the neighbouring villages
24 because you, as a driver, know a lot; right?
25 A. I said that I didn't talk, and I don't even know where his village
Page 7102
1 is in order to be able to tell you whether or not I went to that village.
2 Q. You even told him that you had helped Muslims in villages in
3 spring 1992?
4 A. I never even had an opportunity to reach those Muslims or help
5 them, because I could hardly make do myself. I was getting on in age even
6 at that time, and I'm not getting any younger.
7 Q. But you made clear to Mr. Zekovic that you felt sorry for what
8 happened to the Muslims and that you disagreed with your brother taking
9 the warden's position when the SDS offered it to him. That's what you
10 said, didn't you? That's what you said.
11 A. I would like to know how you propose that I could have told him
12 that when I never spoke to the man.
13 Q. Sir, I noticed when you yesterday gave your evidence-in-chief that
14 you quite often mentioned that there was no need to talk about your
15 brother with detainees. You said that yesterday. You used this term;
16 right?
17 A. Kindly repeat the question.
18 Q. Sir, yesterday I noticed that when you spoke about not having
19 these contacts, you, sir, you several times said there was no need to talk
20 about your brother with detainees. Do you remember that, that you said
21 that?
22 A. I don't remember.
23 Q. And you also said you were not supposed to talk to prisoners.
24 That is what you were told. Do you remember that?
25 A. Nobody told me anything except for what I learnt in 1977 and 1978,
Page 7103
1 and that is that one should not talk to convicted persons, and I held on
2 to that and I have held on to it until this day.
3 Q. However, sir, you did have talks with the detainees. You yourself
4 told us yesterday about your occasion when you had a cigarette with a
5 mechanic. You did have talks?
6 A. I said yesterday at one point that I came there so that a mechanic
7 could take a look at my Furgon, which was supposed to go on the road, and
8 I climbed down into the pit together with him, and I lit up and I shared a
9 cigarette with him and then I left the five or six cigarettes remaining in
10 the pack to him.
11 Q. Sir, it is understandable that today you wish you had never said
12 anything to any detainee. That's understandable, because it hurts your
13 brother and your brother's case. But you are here to tell the truth, and
14 the truth is that you did have talks and that you did talk about your
15 brother with 73 and with Lisica and with Zekovic?
16 A. That cannot be the truth, because I personally did not work within
17 the compound so as to see and meet with those people you talk about. I
18 worked outside of the compound.
19 Q. Did you ever tell your brother Milorad that you disapproved of him
20 taking the position of temporary warden? Did you ever tell him that?
21 A. No, I didn't tell him that, because he's a very hard-working man.
22 And he was not only appointed warden but also the manager, and at the time
23 we had three employees in the commercial department who worked throughout
24 the war, and they couldn't make the necessary decisions on their own.
25 Q. Sir, later on in the course of events, did you ever discuss with
Page 7104
1 your brother any problems that he had in the KP Dom in his position as
2 temporary warden or didn't you do that?
3 A. We never talked about KP Dom problems except when I would come
4 back from a long trip and I would tell him how tired I was, and he would
5 just shrug his shoulders and tell me to get a rest and then go on
6 working.
7 Q. He never told you about any efforts he made to get out of the
8 position as temporary warden; right?
9 A. No, not to me. He didn't have time to. He was too busy trying to
10 get hold of food and animal feed. He didn't have time to get a rest
11 even.
12 Q. Sir, throughout your testimony, you stressed that he was the
13 temporary warden. However, in July 1992, the Ministry of Justice
14 appointed him to be the permanent warden. You're aware of this, aren't
15 you?
16 A. I personally am not aware of that, and it was not my job to get to
17 know such things. I addressed directors, jokingly, as commercial people.
18 And he never talked to me about this, actually, and I never asked.
19 Q. Sir, you said that you never heard that a detainee escaped. Did
20 you ever hear that a guard or a member of the KP Dom administration was
21 disciplined for not taking their duties properly? Are you aware of
22 anything like this?
23 A. I don't know about that, because I wasn't around. I don't even
24 know about things that happened before the war, and even less could I know
25 about anybody being disciplined for violations or dodging his duties.
Page 7105
1 Q. Sir, the KP Dom had a storage for benzine, right, gas, diesel;
2 right?
3 A. That was a garage which had been vacated to make room and served
4 for the storage of fuel, oil, and petrol.
5 Q. And your brother, Milorad, filled the tank of the red Yugo, the
6 second red Yugo, at this depot; right?
7 A. I did not dispose of any fuel, and I don't know about that at all.
8 Q. Sir, you told us earlier on that besides transporting goods, you
9 also drove detainees to the farm. You remember that; right? You talked
10 about that.
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Who gave you these assignments? Who ordered you to do that?
13 A. The officer, the man on duty of the Dom.
14 Q. Do you mean the guard on duty who was sitting in the entrance
15 gate, or who?
16 A. The one who was on duty at the gate. He would call me to park my
17 car outside the entrance and to take people to the farm.
18 Q. And where did he find you? Where were you usually?
19 A. We would usually get together in a former office for drivers, from
20 that place to the canteen, which was outside the compound, and that's
21 where we had lunch and coffee.
22 Q. The former office for the drivers, where was it? Was it within
23 the administration building?
24 A. No. That was outside the administration building, in the
25 compound, in the compound, and when you look at the gate, it was towards
Page 7106
1 the entrance into the metalwork shop.
2 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: With the help of the usher, I would like to
3 show the witness the huge plan, Exhibit 6, P6.
4 Q. Sir, I hope you can see it. Are you able to see on the map where
5 this is?
6 A. Who drew this? If someone tells me where the building is, then
7 maybe I could show you. I'm not a construction engineer to be able to
8 read this plan.
9 Q. Sir --
10 A. If it were written in Serbian, then perhaps I would be able to
11 find something here.
12 Q. Sir, we'll put it on the ELMO and we'll try to make it bigger on
13 your computer screen, because there is writing in Serbian on the map and
14 you may be able to see it, with the help of the technical people.
15 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: We can't see it on the ELMO.
16 JUDGE HUNT: I'm afraid we still have an image of the courtroom
17 taken from your back, Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff --
18 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes.
19 JUDGE HUNT: -- on the computer.
20 You can put it down again. Thanks very much, usher. We've now
21 got the ELMO back.
22 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, there's obviously a technical
23 problem, and it's 4.00 also, so maybe it can be sorted out.
24 JUDGE HUNT: I assume you'll be a little while yet with this
25 witness, will you?
Page 7107
1 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes.
2 JUDGE HUNT: Very well. Then we'll adjourn now until Monday at
3 9.30. Thank you.
4 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 4.00 p.m.,
5 to be reconvened on Monday, the 11th day of June,
6 2001, at 9.30 a.m.
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