1
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing
at
5 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Fila, I think the best plan is to complete the
6 hearing we started yesterday sometime later today, probably towards the
7 end of our session and to carry on with the videolink arrangements now.
8 So who is your next witness?
9 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please. Microphone, please.
10 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] My next witness is General Aleksandar
11 Vasiljevic by your decision only in relation to his written statement. So
12 it will be very brief.
13 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. Can we now please focus on
14 Mr. Vasiljevic.
15 [Witness testified via videolink]
16 JUDGE BONOMY: Good morning, Mr. Vasiljevic. Can you hear me
17 clearly?
18 WITNESS: ALEKSANDAR VASILJEVIC
19 [Witness answered through interpreter]
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I can hear you clearly. Good
21 morning.
22 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you for returning. You previously gave
23 evidence and before you gave evidence you made a solemn declaration to
24 speak the truth. That declaration continues to apply to your evidence
25 today. You will now be cross-examined briefly by Mr. Fila.
1 Mr. Fila.
2 Cross-examination by Mr. Fila:
3 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Vasiljevic, good morning. I apologise for
4 this situation, but it wasn't up to me that I had to call you again. My
5
brief question is on
6 2D387 that I will now show you?
7 A. I did make a statement.
8 JUDGE BONOMY: Please continue, Mr. Fila.
9 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
10 Q. My second and last question is would you have made the same
11 statement now and do you abide by everything stated in it?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Thank you, Mr. Vasiljevic, and I'm sorry for bothering you.
14 MR. FILA: That completes my examination, Your Honour. And I
15 would tender the statement into evidence 2D387.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
17 Mr. Ivetic, do you have cross-examination or are you --
18 MR. IVETIC: No, Your Honour. We completed our cross the last
19 time Mr. Vasiljevic was before us and since the only other issues raised
20 have been this new statement we have no questions regarding this
21 statement.
22 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. Mr. Hannis, do you have questions?
23 Mr. Vasiljevic, you will now be asked some further questions by
24 the Prosecutor Mr. Hannis.
25 Re-examination by Mr. Hannis:
1 Q. Thank you, Your Honour. Good morning, General. I just have a few
2 questions --
3 A. Good morning.
4 Q. -- for you in light of what is in your statement, Exhibit 2D387.
5 In your written statement that was introduced into evidence last January,
6 and this is Exhibit P2600, and I would refer you specifically to paragraph
7 80 if you have that document there. And in English it's about six lines
8 down in paragraph 80, and you're referring to General Pavkovic. The
9 English translation -- I'll wait until you tell me you have it.
10 A. Could you repeat, please? Which paragraph in the Serbian
11 version?
12 Q. Paragraph 80, 8-0.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. And it's the 6th sentence it which -- or sixth line which
15 says: "He invited me to stay for dinner and said they were going to have
16 a meeting of the Joint Command. His exact words."
17 Is that accurate? He used those words, "Joint Command"?
18 A. I know what may appear to be a problem at first glance. The
19 expression "Joint Command" was used. In the course of the statement I
20 gave to Mr. Fila it is written a meeting of the joint staff. I think
21 these are finesses at what is the staff and what is the command. In
22 actual fact, this was a meeting of the Joint Command which was used as an
23 expression everywhere. I don't know what the problem is, whether one says
24 Joint Staff or Joint Command. Anyway, it was a meeting when I came to the
25 command of the Pristina Corps, and this meeting was held. And that was
1 when the expression "Joint Command" was used, but I don't think there is
2 any real difference between staff and command. This is just a linguistic
3 finesse.
4 Q. And in your new statement 2D387, you say that Mr. Sainovic did not
5 issue any particular orders. He listened to all the presentations and
6 then briefly agreed that things should be done as planned by the generals
7 of the MUP and army."
8 I want you to look at Exhibit P2862, which is the excerpt from
9
your diary of that
10 General?
11 JUDGE BONOMY: Before you go to that, Mr. Hannis, the transcript
12 does not show and I didn't hear who you said made that statement, "He
13 invited me to stay for dinner."
14 MR. HANNIS: Oh. Your Honour, earlier in his statement that is
15 referring to General Pavkovic.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: Pavkovic. Thank you.
17 MR. HANNIS:
18 Q. Do you find that exhibit, General, P2862?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And the last entry is translated in English as: "Sainovic tasked
21 them with action to be completed within three to four days."
22 Do you recall what that was about --
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. -- or -- okay. Could you tell us what that was? Is that what he
25 said or is that ...
1 A. I would first like to point out that what is stated in my work
2 notebook is not a record or a minutes of the meeting, nor did I know that
3 a meeting would be held. I always carry my work notebook with me, and as
4 I had it on me on that occasion, I simply briefly jotted down what was
5 said at that meeting. So I don't have a complete minutes, and the oral
6 statement I gave to the best of my recollection is much more detailed than
7 what is written down in this notebook. And I said that Sainovic gave the
8 task that the operation should be completed in three or four days, and
9 this was after the statement and briefing by General Pavkovic, what had to
10 be done the next day to achieve better coordination of the operations of
11 the units on the ground and that the people who had abandoned their
12 position should be called to task.
13 And this wasn't in the sense of any record-keeping. I simply
14 noted down that the activities had to be completed to clear away Drenica
15 or Jablanica. I'm not quite sure which but anyway the area that was
16 discussed at the meeting. That's as much as I can say about what was
17 noted here. I assume that the whole problem is he gave the assignment. I
18 explained in my statement that I do not know what the official position of
19 Mr. Sainovic was at that meeting. I described him as the most senior
20 officer who enjoyed respect by all of us who were there. We stood up when
21 he walked in, including myself. Now, whether he was the commander of a
22 joint staff or a Joint Command, I can't say. I can just say that he was
23 the most senior person by the positions he held in the government and a
24 man of unquestionable political authority. That was my impression of him.
25 Q.
Okay. I just want to ask you if
then reading your prior
1
statement, P2600, and the new exhibit, 2D387, together, am I correct in
2 understanding then that the generals described the operations that they
3 planned to carry out and at the end of that Mr. Sainovic said that should
4 be done within three to four days. Is that accurate?
5 A. Yes, accurate. That's what I noted down.
6 Q. Thank you.
7 MR. HANNIS: I have no further questions for the Witness, Your
8 Honour.
9 Thank you, General.
10 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] General --
11 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Fila, you have cross-examined the witness.
12 That should be the end of the matter with Mr. Hannis's re-examination,
13 unless there's a particularly prejudicial development in the
14 re-examination.
15 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Well, I am now in a dilemma. What is
16 the statement that the witness abides by? If he still abides by what he
17 wrote down, then I'm finished. I have a feeling that Mr. Hannis is
18 undermining the credibility of the witness. What he did was
19 cross-examination, not me. If you're showing him one document and then
20 another, that's cross-examination. And he's undermining the credibility
21 of his own witness, so I don't understand that.
22 I just wanted to ask him one question. Does the witness abide by
23 his written statement or not. That's all.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, what do you say to that?
25 MR. HANNIS: Well, Your Honour, I think I'm just trying to clear
1 up what's on the face of it --
2 JUDGE BONOMY: I understand that but what do you say to the
3 request to ask that one more question.
4 MR. HANNIS: Well, Your Honour, I don't object to that. You're
5 the ultimate deciders. I was unclear on this because he had originally
6 been a Prosecution witness, then he's listed as a defense witness and they
7 put it in a 92 ter statement. I want him to be here for cross-examination
8 on that statement and not let it come in by itself, so I guess he's his
9 witness now, I cross and he can redirect.
10 JUDGE BONOMY: The confusion arises because the issue is one that
11 was raised in examination when he was a Prosecution witness, and his
12 status has not in theory changed, but the presentation of that document
13 creates a practical difficulty that we understand.
14 [Trial Chamber confers]
15 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Fila, we will allow you to ask that question.
16 Further cross-examination by Mr. Fila:
17 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Vasiljevic -- Mr. Vasiljevic, do you have the
18 statement in front of you?
19 A. I do.
20 Q. Could you please read out paragraph 4 aloud and tell me do you
21 stand in every respect by what is stated there?
22 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis.
23 MR. HANNIS: Objection, Your Honour. He's already answered that
24 question.
25 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes. I think that's not the question you were
1 going to ask, Mr. Fila. We authorised you to ask one particular question,
2 and that's the question you should ask.
3 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] That is it, whether you stand by the
4 statement you have given in every respect. I have no other questions.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: What is your answer to that question,
6 Mr. Vasiljevic?
7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I do stand by the statement I made,
8 and I believe that it is no different from the statement I gave during my
9
testimony in
10 agreed that things should be done as the generals had planned. The
11 substance hasn't changed. It's a different way of putting things.
12 Mr. Sainovic was the most senior person at the meeting, and when the
13 meeting ended he said work should be done as planned, and the plan was to
14 clear away the terrain within a period of three or four days.
15 Q. Thank you, Mr. Vasiljevic. That was all I wanted to ask you.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Vasiljevic, that completes your evidence and
17 should be the end of it for you. I don't anticipate you being recalled
18 again. Thank you for returning to assist us. You're now free to leave
19 the courtroom.
20 [The witness withdrew]
21 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
22 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Fila, who is the next witness?
23 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please. Microphone, please.
24 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] The next witness is Zoran Andjelkovic,
25 but I see that his chair -- I'm sorry, not Zoran Andjelkovic, Zoran
1 Mijatovic, but I see the chair is empty.
2 JUDGE BONOMY: I understand he'll be there momentarily.
3 While we're waiting on the witness coming, there are two things
4 that we could perhaps deal with. The first concerns Mr. Lukic and
5 Mr. Ivetic.
6 Mr. Ivetic, you made a filing about the expression "raised," and
7 when we initially considered it we thought, suspected that you'd perhaps
8 acted rather hastily and by mistake and you might wish to reconsider that
9 filing. It seems to us a quite inappropriate thing to do at this stage in
10 this case. We appreciate the debate that went on but the issue was one to
11 which I and all my colleagues were alert and the point that you make is a
12 fairly obvious one for submission in due course, and you then seek a
13 blanket remedy in relation to objections in the course of the case which
14 seems to us potentially frivolous.
15 Now, we wondered if you might wish to withdraw this of if you wish
16 to insist on it.
17 MR. IVETIC: With respect to the blanket admonition, that part I
18 think I will withdraw. However, if -- what -- what -- the reason I -- I
19 too thought whether I should raise that point or not with respect to the
20 misuse of the terminology, but seeing as how both I as a native English
21 speaker still had to look up the terms in the dictionary to verify and
22 Mr. Stamp also is a native English speaker misusing the term I had to I
23 think make sure that the record was clear with regard to that and then --
24 JUDGE BONOMY: But surely, surely that's matter for final
25 submission and not something we should be batting back and forward across
1 the --
2 MR. IVETIC: That's fine. Then if that's the Court's position as
3 long as that's reflected in the record I have no problem resolving that
4 matter at the stage of submissions.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: So do you wish to withdraw this document?
6 MR. IVETIC: That's fine, Your Honour, yes.
7 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. The other matter I can deal with at the
8 moment is that after the winter recess we will resume sittings on the 16th
9 of January.
10 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour I thought you said the 16th. It comes
11 out on the transcript as the 6th.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: That's just getting the best of both words,
13 Mr. Hannis.
14 MR. SEPENUK: Your Honour, may the record reflect a small round of
15 applause concerning your last statement.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
17 WITNESS: ZORAN MIJATOVIC
18 [Witness answered through interpreter]
19 [Witness testified via videolink]
20 JUDGE BONOMY: Good morning, Mr. Mijatovic.
21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honour.
22 JUDGE BONOMY: Could you please stand while -- while you make the
23 solemn declaration. Would you now please make the solemn declaration to
24 speak the truth by reading aloud the document you now have in your hand.
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will
1 speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
2 JUDGE BONOMY: You will now be examined by Mr. Fila on behalf of
3 Mr. Sainovic.
4 Mr. Fila.
5 Examination by Mr. Fila:
6 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. Mijatovic. Can you hear me
7 well?
8 A. Good morning, Mr. Fila. I can hear you fine.
9 Q. Since we're talking the same language, after I finish my question
10 could you make a brief pause so that the interpreters can catch up. That
11 will make our work proceed faster, although it will seem slower.
12 A. Yes, I understand you.
13 Q. Could you please tell me first of all your name and your
14 qualifications.
15 A. My name is Zoran Mijatovic, and I have a law degree.
16 Q. Could you please tell us where you worked and what duties you had
17 in the MUP or, rather, in the State Security Service until your
18 retirement?
19 A. I started working in the State Security Service in the Ministry of
20 the Interior in Serbia in 1970, and I started my career as an intern, as a
21 trainee, rather, and I ended it as the assistant to the chief of State
22 Security Service, Jovica Stanisic, for counter-intelligence so when I was
23 retired on the 1st of January, 1999.
24 Among my major functions in the State Security Service - I will
25 not go into all of them - I started as an operative and then I was a
1 branch chief, the chief of State Security Service in Belgrade, the chief
2 of Intelligence Administration and my last post was the assistant to the
3 chief for counter-intelligence and as I indicated earlier I retired on the
4 1st of January, 1999, at my personal request.
5 Q. Thank you. At one point you were recalled to service and then you
6 retired again at your personal request. What was your duty during this
7 brief period of time?
8 A. I returned to the service on the 26th of January, 2001, and I was
9 the deputy chief of the state security department. I retired again, but
10 that was not on my personal request. In November 2001 I resigned to Zoran
11 Djindjic's government that was in power at the time.
12 Q. Thank you very much. And since not all of us know what this is
13 all about, could you tell us in brief what is the sphere of activity of
14 the State Security Service, and in particular in the first part of your
15 service there.
16 A. Well, the State Security Service in its essence was the
17 counter-intelligence service, and up until 1990, until the introduction of
18 the multi-party system, in assisting to its counter-intelligence work it
19 also dealt with the internal enemy counter-intelligence protection which
20 was of particular importance for the
defence of the
21 then counter-intelligence protection of various persons and analysis,
22 background checks, things like that.
23 And then after 1990 when the multi-party system was introduced the
24 service did only counter-intelligence work, intelligence work, and work
25 aimed at countering internal terrorism. So that would be in brief what
1 the service did between 1990 and 2001 when I left the service.
2 Q. During your service did you ever meet a person by the name of
3 Ratomir Tanic, and does he have anything to do with your service, the
4 State Security Service?
5 A. I met Ratomir Tanic, I think, now I can't be really very accurate,
6 between 1992 and 1993.
7 Q. Who was his contact while you were in the service?
8 A. Ratomir Tanic had for years collaborated with the State Security
9 Service, even at the time of the single-party system. He was used in
10 activities aimed at the internal enemies, and then Tanic got in touch with
11 the foreign intelligence service and of -- he was then used as a
12 collaborator of that service, and then --
13 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter didn't catch the year.
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] He got in touch with the British
15 counter-intelligence service and he was used then as a collaborator of
16 that service.
17 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
18 Q. Who were -- who was his immediate contact apart from yourself?
19 A. Let me just correct you. I was not Tanic's contact. The
20 operatives of the service did that.
21 Q. Could you give us a name perhaps or would that be classified?
22 A. Well, I don't know. Maybe we can do that in private session.
23 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Could we please go into private session
24 for that, because we're dealing with those kinds of services now.
25 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes.
1 [Private session]
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 [Open session]
15 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session, Your Honours.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
17 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
18 Q. Did Mr. Tanic receive any money for his services? What do you
19 know about that, how much he received, from whom, when, and why?
20 A. The first larger amounts of money Mr. Tanic received came from the
21 service. I think that was in 1993 or thereabouts. The assessment at the
22 time was that Tanic's motive for working with the service was of financial
23 nature, and when we decided to give him some money, since that was his
24 motivation for his work with the service, we decided to make a secret
25 document documenting this first payment, larger payment, and then later on
1 if there was any lack of discipline on his part in his work with the
2 service, we could then use it against it and bring it into line, as we
3 say.
4 This money that we paid to him was not too big in terms of what
5 agents receive both in our country and in abroad, but given that we were
6 under the sanctions at the time, the comparable amount would be 20 or 40
7 average monthly salaries. It was paid in hard currency, in German marks.
8 Q. In your evidence before -- in his evidence before this Tribunal,
9 Mr. Tanic said that he held a high rank in the State Security Service. Is
10 that correct?
11 A. There were no ranks among agents in the service, State Security
12 Service. Collaborators could be useful or not useful, could be trusted or
13 not trusted.
14 MR. HANNIS: [Previous translation continues] ...
15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Checked or unchecked but there were
16 no official ranks.
17 JUDGE BONOMY: Just one moment, Mr. Hannis.
18 MR. HANNIS: I'm sorry. Could we have a reference to where in the
19 record Mr. Tanic said he had a high rank?
20 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I will find it later. He said that he
21 got promoted or advanced as his work progressed. That's what he said.
22 But I'll find -- I'll find the reference and then if I find it I will
23 share it with you. Because I can -- I can rephrase my question.
24 MR. HANNIS: Well, I would like the question rephrased to reflect
25 the record, whatever it is.
1 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
2 Q. Let's put it this way then: What was Tanic in the service from
3 the beginning until the end?
4 A. I've already told you that he was used in our work against the
5 English service, and he was double agent, in our parlance. We didn't
6 trust him. We used him to double-cross the English service.
7 Q. Fine. What was his reputation in the State Security Service? I
8 mean Mr. Tanic's reputation.
9 A. He was a man we didn't trust too much, and he was a man to whom we
10 applied secret surveillance measures, secret measures of that kind.
11 Q. Generally speaking, how would you assess the value of the
12 information you received from him? Were they correct?
13 A. Well, you know, after all those years I can't really make an
14 assessment of the value of the intelligence he provided. He probably from
15 time to time supplied some valuable intelligence, probably.
16 Q. Is it true that the information he gave to you would be at
17 Slobodan Milosevic's desk within an hour or two hours?
18 A. Well, I don't know what was -- when the intelligence received by
19 the service, by the head of the department, would find itself at President
20 Milosevic's desk. That is not something that I knew. I didn't know
21 anything about the communication between the department chief and the
22 president of the state.
23 Q. But how could the department chief get the information from Tanic
24 since you said that he had his contact, the gentleman that we called
25 contact? Would it have to go through you or what?
1 A. The department chief would get the information that would be
2 classified. It would be marked Rabin, that was his code-name, and then
3 there would be the actual report. For supplying the intelligence to the
4 outside of the service, nobody could know the identity of the person
5 supplying the intelligence. Even the department chief did not have to
6 remember the identity of all those agents, and he would sometimes perhaps
7 ask who is this man? I don't recall that he ever asked anything about
8 Tanic.
9 Q. Let us make our question simple. Did Tanic get instructions from
10 Jovica Stanisic through you or did he send intelligence through you to
11 Stanisic which would then be at Milosevic's desk within an hour or two
12 hours? Do you know anything about that?
13 A. Well, that's complete nonsense. That's not how the service
14 functions.
15 Q. And did Mr. Tanic get instructions through you or from you and you
16 in turn from Stanisic and Stanisic in turn from I don't know who to
17 establish channels with Western countries
to improve
18 with them? Did you ever give him such instructions?
19 A. [Realtime transcript read in error "Stanisic"] Tanic was a
20 small-calibre agent. My most recent book, "Ambush for Serbs," gives you a
21 very good idea of the actual calibre of all of our agents.
22 Q. I apologise. It says here Stanisic was a small-calibre agent. It
23 should read Tanic.
24 A. That's correct, Tanic. Tanic was a really, really small-fry.
25 Q. You can give me shorter answers, yes or no answers.
1
Is it correct that the
2 Security Service authorise Mr. Tanic through you to negotiate about the
3 settlement of the Kosovo crisis until 1998, in the time period leading up
4 to 1998?
5 A. The service did not have any power to do that, so that would be
6 just Tanic's confabulation, and he was prone to such flights of fancy.
7 Q. Is it correct that during those purported negotiations you often
8 met with Tanic and that he had a direct link with Slobodan Milosevic
9 through you? What would you say to something like that?
10 A. I never had any direct contacts with Mr. Milosevic. I don't know
11 anything about those purported negotiations that Tanic may have
12 participated in.
13 Q. The answer to the first part of my question, were you very -- did
14 you meet with him very often about those contacts?
15 A. Let me just tell you one more thing. I met Tanic five times in my
16 entire life, and he received his instructions that were related to our
17 game with the English intelligence service, and I will not be going into
18 that because it has nothing to do with this case.
19 Q. That's correct, it doesn't. Mr. Mijatovic, is it correct that you
20 told Tanic that a secret annex had been signed in Dayton allowing NATO to
21 get all the information it needed about the army of Yugoslavia?
22 A. Yet another nonsensical statement. I have the entire Dayton
23 agreement with all its annexes in my possession, and there was no such
24 option provided for in the
25 Q. So that's not what you said.
1 A. Well, how could I have said it?
2 Q. I have to apologise, Mr. Mijatovic. I'm not asking those
3 questions. I know the situation, but is it true that Tanic through you at
4 the beginning of 1998 already, but -- informed Milosevic but through you
5 that NATO would attack if the operations in Kosovo continued? That is
6 apparently a report he got from his sources.
7 A. Let me try and explain as briefly as possible the year 1998. From
8 April I became assistant chief of the department of counter-intelligence,
9 and from then on my jurisdiction towards the collaborators of the Belgrade
10 centre ceased. That means in April. So I saw Tanic for the last time in
11 December 1997.
12 As for NATO's intentions, we had very good collaborators, and you
13 can assure yourself that I'm telling the truth by looking at my
14 book "Ambush for the Serbs," which -- from which you can see when the
15 bombing of FRY was concerned that the sanctions were just changing what
16 had been planned in 1992, and in 1997 and 1998 we had very precise data as
17 to what was going on. You can check with the book. I didn't prepare
18 myself for this just now.
19 But Tanic's information was very low-level. He never had any such
20 information. We had very precise and very reliable information through
21 our intelligence agents primarily in the West.
22 Q. Is it true that you and Tanic together came to the conclusion that
23 the tactics of the Serbian police in Kosovo was first to send a few
24 policemen to a particular village for them to get killed while special
25 units were already ready to destroy the whole village after that? Is
1 anything like that possible?
2 A. I cannot comment on the logical and moral nonsense that this
3 implies.
4 Q. Did you ever tell Tanic that Sainovic was actively involved in
5 provoking the war in Kosovo? Yes or no, please.
6 A. Nonsense.
7 Q. Is it true that you passed on to Tanic the information that
8 Sainovic was carrying personal messages from Milosevic to Kosovo and that
9 those messages were in contradiction with the situation on the ground and
10 that they were illegal?
11 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, could we have a reference to the course
12 of this question?
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This is again nonsense. I'm unaware
14 of any such thing.
15 JUDGE BONOMY: Do you have references for these two propositions
16 that you've put, Mr. Fila?
17 Mr PETROVIC: Your Honour, I can be of assistance, if I may. For
18 the previous question it is page 6325, 6326; then page 6332 up to 6340 of
19 the transcript. All these questions being put by Mr. Fila are contained
20 in those pages of the transcript, and you will certainly recall that
21 Tanic's testimony was rather confusing so it is very difficult to pinpoint
22 a particular sentence but it is contained in these pages.
23 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I never said that Tanic said this. I'm
24 asking whether the witness said this to Tanic. I think that is the proper
25 way for me to put the question.
1 JUDGE BONOMY: I understand, but Mr. -- yes. But Mr. Hannis's
2 suspicion is that you're asking that question because of something Tanic
3 said here when he gave evidence, and he's seeking references to the pages
4 where Tanic dealt with these areas, and Mr. Petrovic has been good enough
5 to give us these, and if Mr. Hannis is unhappy with that, no doubt he will
6 tell us.
7 MR. HANNIS: I've just looked at the first reference, Your Honour,
8 and it does indicate Mr. Tanic is answering a question and says: "I don't
9 have direct information from Mr. Sainovic about that, but I have very
10 reliable information from the State Security Service." He didn't say he
11 had information from this individual in particular. So that's my --
12 that's my complaint.
13 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, let me have a look at that. Are you talking
14 about page 20, line 2? Or 19, 24?
15 MR. HANNIS: Let me find it, Your Honour. I'm looking at line --
16 I'm looking at line 20 -- I mean line 12 on page 20 where Mr. Petrovic
17 said for the previous page it's 6325.
18 JUDGE BONOMY: I understand that, but is that in relation to the
19 question at 20, 24, or the question at 20, line 2?
20 MR. HANNIS: I think that was the question at 20, line 2. Well,
21 actually, it touches on both. I'm looking at the transcript from 10
22 November at page 6325.
23 JUDGE BONOMY: But if -- if he says he has got information from
24 the State Security Service and we have here a member of the State Security
25 Service, it's surely legitimate to ask him whether he passed that
1 information to him.
2 MR. HANNIS: Correct. My concern was the suggestion that he's the
3 only source of Mr. Tanic's information for the security service and I
4 don't think that was his evidence. Thanks.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: I don't see anything wrong with what you're doing,
6 Mr. Fila, so please continue.
7 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
8 Q. Is it true that you told Mr. Tanic that Sainovic in 1998
9 obstructed the work of the State Security Service upon orders from
10 Milosevic so as to create -- create the situation -- the impression that
11 the situation in Kosovo cannot be dealt with in any other way but by means
12 of war? Did you tell him anything like that?
13 A. Mr. Sainovic and the service in those days had no contact as far
14 as I know.
15 Q. Could you have said something like that?
16 A. How could I have when we were completely independent? We didn't
17 depend on Mr. Sainovic or on others. Of the service was headed by
18 Mr. Stanisic, who was the chief of the service.
19 JUDGE BONOMY: It's quite difficult to control the situation
20 whether there might be an objection in this context, Mr. Hannis. So that
21 I get the picture clear, that question was very specifically about what
22 this witness might have said, and it does appear to presuppose that Tanic
23 gave that specific evidence.
24 MR. HANNIS: Yes. Initially I was going to object to the question
25 that starts at line 2 on page 22 where he says is it true you told
1 Mr. Tanic X, but his last question in formulating that question was did
2 you tell him anything like that? Now, I don't have a problem with the
3 question phrased that way.
4 JUDGE BONOMY: All right.
5 MR. HANNIS: But is it true you told him is a problem.
6 JUDGE BONOMY: Very well. Thank you.
7 Please continue, Mr. Fila.
8 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
9 Q. So the answer to my last question was yes or no, because there's a
10 problem in the transcript, that you informed Tanic that Sainovic
11 obstructed the work of the service?
12 A. Answer is no.
13 Q. Is it true that you spoke to Tanic about many problems that you
14 had with Sainovic and that Sainovic had improperly interpreted information
15 coming from Milosevic down and from the bottom up towards Milosevic, that
16 you told Tanic this?
17 A. I don't know what information Slobodan Milosevic received.
18 Q. But did you say anything like this to Tanic?
19 A. If I don't know what information he got, how could I say that?
20 After all, Tanic was our agent. He received instructions for his work
21 from us. So it was not up to us to inform him, but it was up to him to
22 inform us.
23 Q. What you are saying is that the information went from him towards
24 you and not vice versa.
25 A.
Of course. And as -- let me
repeat once again that his main area
1
was with the British intelligence service. And after all, in 1999 he was
2 engaged by them as a witness in The Hague Tribunal, and he started working
3 for them. So that is a fact.
4 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Mijatovic, did you say anything or is it my
5 poor recollection about Tanic being a double agent?
6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I did say that he was a double
7 agent.
8 JUDGE BONOMY: And with that knowledge would you perhaps misinform
9 him?
10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Certainly. That is customary when
11 dealing with intelligence.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
13 Mr. Fila.
14 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
15 Q. Did you ever say to Mr. Tanic that there is a tape recording of a
16 conversation between Sainovic and General Lukic?
17 A. I hear that for the first time.
18 Q. This brings me to the end of my question. Is there any
19 possibility that you may have said any of these things to Tanic in order
20 to mislead the British intelligence service?
21 A. No. What we did regarding misinformation of the British
22 intelligence service is something quite different. It's not linked to the
23 topic of criminal acts of which the accused Sainovic is charged.
24 Q. I thank you very much, Witness. That is the end of my
25 examination.
1 JUDGE BONOMY: Does any Defence counsel wish to examine? I see no
2 one indicating an intention.
3 Mr. Hannis.
4 Mr. Mijatovic, you will now be cross-examined by Mr. Hannis, the
5 Prosecutor.
6 Cross-examination by Mr. Hannis:
7 Q. Thank you. Mr. Mijatovic, can you tell us who were the personnel
8 in the Ministry of Interior in 1998 and 1999? We know who the minister of
9 the interior was. Can you tell us who the deputy ministers were that were
10 in charge of the RDB and the RJB?
11 A. In 1998, that is until he was replaced, Jovica Stanisic was the
12 head of the State Security Service, and the assistant minister and chief
13 of the public security service was Vlastimir Djordjevic.
14 Q. And when was Mr. Stanisic replaced in his position?
15 A. That was at the end of October 1998.
16 Q. Did you know Mr. Obrad Stevanovic, and, if so, what was his
17 position?
18 A. I don't know what position Obrad Stevanovic had in 1998, but I do
19 know that he had a senior position.
20 Q. In the RJB; correct?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. What about a man known by the nickname Legija? One name I've head
23 for him is Milorad Ulemek, but I believe he has another name as well. You
24 know who I'm talking about?
25 A. Yes, I understand. He was the commander of the Special Operations
1 Unit of the State Security Service.
2 Q. And that unit is sometimes referred to as the Red Berets or the
3 JSO?
4 A. Yes. But I don't know where we're going since I'm testifying
5 about Tanic's statement. I don't mind answering your questions; I just
6 don't understand why.
7 Q. Well, sir --
8 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Mijatovic, there is no limitation on the areas
9 that counsel can explore in questioning you as long as they are relevant
10 to this trial, so please answer any question Mr. Hannis asks unless we
11 instruct you not to.
12 Mr. Hannis.
13 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour.
14 Q. Did you also know David Gajic?
15 A. Yes. He was a colleague of mine, and he was also the assistant
16 chief of the department.
17 Q. And what position did he hold in relation to Kosovo in 1998?
18 A. He was assistant chief of the State Security Service of Jovica
19 Stanisic, and he coordinated the work of the State Security Service in
20 Kosovo.
21 Q. In connection with the JSO, who was -- who was the commander or
22 the overall head of that unit in 1998 and 1999?
23 A. In 1999 I was retired, and until -- that is, in 1998 I know with
24 reliability that the commander of the unit was Milorad Ulemek and the
25 person responsible for that unit was Frenki Simatovic, who was also
1 assistant chief of the department.
2 Q. Were you aware when you returned to your work in 2001 or
3 thereafter did you become aware that -- that there were allegations that
4 the JSO had committed crimes in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999?
5 A. That the JSO had committed crimes in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999, when
6 I returned to the service I did not know that, but what I did know was
7 that individuals had taken part in other acts of crime, and as a service
8 already a month later we arrested the perpetrators of the crime on the
9 Ibar highway. So what we knew, we took action against and started
10 prosecutions. As for this fact about Kosovo is something I don't know.
11 Q. And you weren't aware of any allegations about crimes committed by
12 JSO members in Kosovo and in particular regarding Dubrava Prison in 1999?
13 MR. IVETIC: Your Honour, at this point I think I have to object.
14 I believe Dubrava Prison or Istok has been removed from the indictment.
15 We've discussed this time and time again and we've not had evidence led
16 would respect to this, so I don't know why we're going into this at this
17 stage unless we want to restart this case from the beginning.
18 MR. HANNIS: It goes to the credibility of this witness, Your
19 Honour.
20 [Trial Chamber confers]
21 JUDGE BONOMY: We shall repel that objection. The -- no attempt
22 is being made to explore the facts. What Mr. Hannis is seeking to explore
23 is the witness's knowledge in relation to his credibility. So please
24 continue, Mr. Hannis. It would be better, I think, if you were to repeat
25 the question.
1 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
2 Q. Mr. Mijatovic, my question was, were you aware of allegations that
3 JSO members had committed crimes in Kosovo, in particular at Dubrava
4 Prison, in 1999. Yes or no?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Thank you. Today at page 12 you told us you returned to the
7
service on
8 November -- or you resigned. Why did you resign at that time?
9 A. I handed in my resignation after the protest of the JSO unit
10 against the arrest of Banovic brothers and
their extradition to
11 Tribunal.
12 Q. And the Banovic brothers were associated with the JSO?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Well --
15 A.
The Banovic brothers are people from
16 demanded by The Hague Tribunal on charges of crimes committed in the
17 territory of
18 Q. But wasn't part of the reason for your resigning in 2001 because
19 the JSO in effect was staging a sort of rebellion or revolt against
20 extraditing the Banovics to The Hague Tribunal?
21 A. My resignation was based on political manipulations in connection
22 with the protests of the JSO.
23 Q. And what were the protests of the JSO about?
24 A.
The fear was that the new leadership of
25 people requested by The Hague Tribunal and accused of crimes would, in
1 fact, be handed over.
2 Q. And that was the new leadership headed by Mr. Djindjic; correct?
3 A. I'm talking about the leadership of the service.
4 Q. And who in particular?
5 A. It was Goran Petrovic and all of us who still had senior positions
6 in the State Security Service.
7
Q. But isn't the matter of
handing individuals over to
8 Tribunal a matter for the government and not for the service? Or was the
9 service running things in that regard?
10 A. We are the operative organ or the executive organ of the
11 government, and that leads to our duties and obligations, and we acted in
12 accordance with those duties.
13 Q. I'm not sure you answered my question. Are you saying that if the
14 service didn't want to find or arrest fugitives, then they would not be
15 extradited to
16 A. I'm afraid I didn't understand you very well.
17 Q. My question is: Who made the decisions about whether or not
18 fugitives or indicted individuals would be
handed over to
19 made that decision in your country at the time of 2001? Was that the
20 government or was that the service?
21 A. The government made the political decisions, and we put into
22 effect those political decisions.
23 Q. And part of this dispute was the JSO did not want to be handing
24 over individuals to The Hague Tribunal; correct?
25 A. Yes, certainly that's correct. They sought the support of certain
1 political factors.
2 Q. All right. You told us that after 1990 --
3 JUDGE BONOMY: Are you departing from that point?
4 MR. HANNIS: I am, Your Honour.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: Because I don't understand it.
6 You referred to: "Goran Petrovic and all of us who still had
7 senior positions in the State Security Service." Now, what are you saying
8 about him and yourself in that connection?
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] What I meant was that in the
10 previous period when Rade Markovic headed the service and Nikola Curcic
11 and when we had the previous system, that is the period from 1998 until
12 2001, the indictees of The Hague Tribunal were not extradited. That was
13 the political position, and that was how the police acted.
14 JUDGE BONOMY: Was your fear --
15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] May I add?
16 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes.
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I just meant to say that we -- at
18 the time Jovica Stanisic was the chief, at your request we did hand over
19 Erdemovic, who was put on trial here. I can't remember the second person
20 who was also handed over for -- charged of war crimes, and we took to
21 trial the Vuckovic -- Becko -- Buskovic [as interpreted] brothers. Also
22 in 2001 we passed on to The Hague Tribunal in accordance with your rules
23 documents for criminal prosecution of the KLA, and we also prepared
24 documents for the trial of persons who took part in the kidnapping of the
25 17 Muslims from a bus in
1 So I'm saying that the Markovic [as interpreted] leadership did
2 take specific measures for the perpetrators of the worst crimes to be
3 found and handed over.
4 JUDGE BONOMY: But -- but was your fear that Petrovic and you and
5 others might be arrested by the new government?
6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] What government are you referring
7 to, sorry?
8 JUDGE BONOMY: I'm completely -- I really don't know what you're
9 saying was the reason for your resignation. You talk about political
10 manipulation. That's meaningless to me. I'm just trying to be clear
11 about why it is you say you resigned.
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm not saying that. I handed in my
13 written resignation, and it was published in the media, and you can see it
14 for yourself.
15 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, just you tell me, please.
16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] What should I tell you?
17 JUDGE BONOMY: Hopefully, the truth. Why did you resign in 2001?
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Okay. Fine. Well, I don't know if
19 you have enough time, or should I perhaps give you an abridged version of
20 what actually happened in 2001 when we were talking about the rebellion of
21 this unit?
22 JUDGE BONOMY: A very short explanation of your reason for
23 resigning.
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Fine. Several days before the
25 rebellion we had handed over the Banovic brothers to your Office of the
1
Prosecutor. They were charged
with serious crimes committed in
2
3 After a few days after their arrest, the unit rebelled. I don't
4 recall the exact date, but it was in November, and on that occasion people
5 who led the rebellion made two basic requests that led them to actually
6 rebel. One was that there should be no more arrests or surrender of
7 people to The Hague Tribunal before the law on cooperation with the
8 Tribunal was enacted because there was no such law in place at the time,
9 and the second demand made by the rebels was to remove from --
10 JUDGE BONOMY: Let me stop from there. Just tell us why you
11 resigned. Did you disagree with them? Did they force you out? What was
12 the reason for you resigning? We don't want the whole -- I don't want the
13 whole history of this. I just want to know why you resigned.
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Fine. You see, inside this bloc
15 that came into power after the toppling of Milosevic there were some
16 political disagreements primarily regarding the cooperation with the
17 Tribunal. We encountered first problems within our service after Slobodan
18 Milosevic was surrendered, and those rifts continued. And after this unit
19 rebelled, there was a political -- big political rift regarding the policy
20 of our cooperation with the Tribunal.
21 Dusan Mihajlovic, who was the interior minister at the time, used
22 this rebellion for his own ends. That was the main problem for me. And
23 ultimately nobody from that government stood up to protect the service
24 that had done its job in accordance with the demands made of it by the
25 prime minister, Mr. Djindjic. Nobody would be in such a state service if
1 they did not get the support of their own government for the kind of work
2 they do.
3 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
4 Mr. Hannis.
5 MR. HANNIS:
6 Q. Mr. Mijatovic, you've written two books that I'm aware of about
7 your experiences in the service; correct?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. I think the first one is translated into English as "Requiem for a
10 State Secret," and the most recent one
this year is "Ambush for
11 Is that right?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. We just got that most recent one days ago, as far as I'm aware,
14 and I don't read Serbian and we haven't had an opportunity to translate it
15 all into English, but I understand in that book you write about this JSO
16 rebellion and your reasons for resigning in that book, don't you?
17 A. Well, that's what I'm talking about in both books.
18 Q. Among many other things as well; correct?
19 A. Yes.
20 MR. HANNIS: And for the record, Your Honour, ""Requiem for a
21 State Secret"" is exhibit P2915;
"Ambush for
22 Q. And I will come back to those in a few minutes, Mr. Mijatovic. I
23 have some questions on those, but I want to ask you about [Realtime
24 transcript read in error "Mr. Stanisic"] Mr. Tanic. Today at page 14
25 you've said that -- well, first at page 13 you said you met him - you
1 couldn't be very accurate - it was sometime between 1992 and 1993. Did
2 you not keep any kind of records in the service about when you first met
3 him?
4 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Petrovic.
5 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, at page 33, line 17,
6 my colleague Mr. Hannis asked a question about Mr. Tanic and the record
7 reflects that he asked about Mr. Stanisic. Perhaps that could be
8 corrected so that any confusion is avoided.
9 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. Mr. Mijatovic, the question is about
10 Mr. Tanic. Can you deal with that, please?
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Within a single year I have
12 about -- between a thousand and 2.000 contacts so it is very difficult for
13 me to recall this contact that I had with Mr. Tanic, when it was exactly.
14 It was not of any great importance and I wouldn't be making any notes of
15 it. The notes are kept by the operative. I was there with the operative,
16 but I was not making any kind of record of it.
17 MR. HANNIS:
18 Q. But the operative would have made a note of that first contact
19 with Mr. Tanic, and that would be in the records of the service; correct?
20 A. Yes, definitely.
21 Q. And those records should still be in existence and available;
22 correct?
23 A. Well, it depends on what you mean when you say every records. The
24 records of the operative actually contain information about his contacts.
25 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction: Records of the agent
1 actually contain information about his contacts.
2 MR. HANNIS:
3 Q. Okay. When you say records of the agent, are you talking about
4 the person who works for the service who had had a contact with
5 Mr. Tanic? Is that where the first contact by Mr. Tanic would be noted in
6 the service's records?
7 A. I said that the operative writes a report about the agent or
8 collaborator. I don't know what was recorded by the operative at that
9 meeting with Mr. Tanic, whether he recorded the fact that this was the
10 first time that I met him, but I did not write a report on the agent. The
11 operatives did that. I cannot, despite all my willingness to do so, I
12 cannot tell you what was written there because I don't know it, but at any
13 rate, the agent report would indicate that I was present at that time
14 during that contact, and if I had made any suggestions to Tanic as our
15 agent it would be recorded there and also the type of suggestion that I
16 made. That would be definitely written in this report on agent code-name
17 Rabin. I don't know recall whether at that time his code-name as Rabin or
18 not. I remember for operative reasons his code-name got changed at one
19 point.
20 Q. And when you returned from the service were there any limitations
21 put on you or did you sign any kind of agreement that you would not reveal
22 secret information you had learned in the course of your employment with
23 the service?
24 A. I don't understand your question. On my return? Are you talking
25 about the time when I returned to the service?
1 Q. No. Isn't it standard procedure in agencies like yours that when
2 somebody retires they -- they sign some sort of agreement or promise or
3 commitment not to reveal the information that they were privy to as a
4 result of working for the service? And perhaps it would help if you would
5 look at Exhibit 2922. That's a document that the Registry officer should
6 have there for you.
7 MR. HANNIS: We don't have it in English, Your Honour. The ERN is
8 0611-1937.
9 Q. Can you tell us what that is?
10 A. Yes. It's a statement. It's signed. "I hereby undertake that in
11 accordance with," and so on, "Official secret," and so on. It was signed
12 on the 12th of January. I can't really read the date here. The 12th of
14 It was signed at that time, and I am happy to say that I have not yet
15 reached that area where I would be revealing any state or official
16 secrets. This is something that you have to sign before you get your
17 first severance payment or first pension or, rather, your first severance
18 payment because you get your pension later.
19 Q. Are you saying that none of the things you wrote about in your two
20 books fall under that prohibition? Both those books contain a lot of
21 details about individuals and events and things you learned about in the
22 course of your employment at the DB. Correct?
23 A. Yes. But I did write about the notion of state secret, what I
24 thought about it, and what happened to us after all those years with the
25 state secret, because we're now in a totally absurd situation regarding
1 all the things that are considered to be -- are classified as state
2 secret, official secret, or military secret. This is what I wrote in my
3
first book. The authorities of
the
4 that in writing my first book I actually revealed any of the state
5 secrets.
6 Q. And --
7 A. And the first book is actually just a response to my contacts with
8 the Office of the Prosecutor of the Tribunal and their improper behaviour.
9 Q. And how do you know that the authorities did not consider what you
10 wrote in your first book to be revealing state secrets? Did you ask any
11 permission ahead of time before writing your book about putting those
12 things in there? Did you get any kind of waiver?
13 A. I did not seek any such thing, but do you think that I revealed
14 any state secrets?
15 Q. Well, you're in a better position than I am to know what is a
16 state secret for the
17 about that in a minute. Let me go back to Mr. Tanic for the moment.
18 At page 14 --
19 JUDGE BONOMY: Before you do that--
20 MR. HANNIS: Yes, Your Honour.
21 JUDGE BONOMY: -- Mr. Hannis, 2922 will be marked for
22 identification.
23 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
24 Q. At page 14 today you were talking about payments to Mr. Tanic in
25 answering Mr. Fila's question. You said "the first larger amounts of
1 money Mr. Tanic received came from the service. I think that was in 1993
2 or thereabouts." And you said: "When we decided to give him some money,
3 since that was his motivation for his work with the service, we decided to
4 make a secret document documenting this first payment, large payment, and
5 then later on if there was any lack of discipline on his part in his work
6 with the service, we could then use it against it and bring it into line,
7 as we say."
8 What sort of secret document are you referring to there? Just
9 something showing how much was paid to Mr. Tanic on a certain date?
10 A. Well, I have to apologise, but in order to clarify things and to
11 give you a more specific answer to your question, the previous question
12 concerned secrets. I would never talk about Mr. Tanic as an agent or a
13 collaborator if he had not indicated that he had been our collaborator in
14 his testimony before the Tribunal.
15 Regarding those documents that relate to Mr. Tanic and the
16 operative who was his contact, we had lunch at Usce restaurant and we
17 recorded the actual payment, the changing, the money changing hands, the
18 hard currency that was used with concealed cameras. I think it was about
19 2.000 German marks at that time, so it was not a very high amount. So you
20 can gauge his value as a collaborator. But this amount was high if you
21 take into account the fact that we were under the sanctions at that time.
22 Q. Well --
23 A.
That was the average salary in
24 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter apologises. We didn't hear the
25 witness because of shuffling of the papers.
1 MR. HANNIS: Mr. Mijatovic, could you --
2 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, the last part of
3 Mr. Mijatovic's answer didn't get recorded, and that was that
4 Mr. Mijatovic -- that Mr. Tanic was not aware that he was being recorded.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: I think that's what Mr. Hannis was about to clarify
6 with him. Thank you.
7 MR. HANNIS:
8 Q. Mr. Mijatovic, you said about 2.000 Deutschmarks. I think when
9 you testified earlier you said that was the equivalent of 20 to 40 months
10 of salary in
11 A. I think that was the amount. At that time sanctions were already
12 in place, and the effects began to be felt, and that's a fact.
13 Q. Well, then I'm a little confused because you just said "It was not
14 a very high amount so you can gauge his value as a collaborator." Twenty
15 to 40 months worth of salary, two to three years worth of salary, is a
16 significant amount, isn't it?
17 A. Well, everything is relative, but I think that no intelligence
18 service in the world pays its agents 2.000 German marks. I would like you
19 to tell me which service would do that. I don't think that any service
20 would do that. We paid some of our more valuable agents more, the agents
21 that we trusted more and whose intelligence was of vital importance.
22 Q. Well, in 1998 -- 1997/1998, let's say, how -- well, I guess in
23 fairness, let's go back to 1993.
24 In 1993, how many of these kinds of agents was the service
25 paying? Was it 10? Was it a hundred, a thousand? How many are we
1 talking about?
2 A. Well, since I'm giving evidence here, I would not like to be
3 inaccurate. You're now bringing me back to a time that's 14 years ago,
4 and I wouldn't like to mislead you in any way, but I think that that was
5 not his monthly salary. That was the annual salary. I'm talking about
6 the
7 but there were some agents who would get more than he did, but those were
8 not huge amounts in German marks. So I think that some people would get
9 about 7 to 8.000 marks. I allow for that possibility. I'm not talking
10 about the
11 in
12 were paid, and I don't want to mislead you in any way.
13 Q. So you can't tell me how many agents were being paid, whether it
14 was 10 or a hundred or more; is that right?
15 A. Well, I can't give you the exact figure now. I served for 30
16 years in that service, not three days. I worked with the operatives and
17 agents. I was the head of the counter-intelligence service where people
18 were paid in a different way. I was the head of the
19 could perhaps get a little bit confused. If we are talking about 1993, I
20 can't give you -- I don't know how many agents there were, but quite a
21 few, I would say. I can't give you the figure. I don't think that it
22 would be fair of me to just give you a figure now, and it would be
23 difficult to check whether it's accurate.
24 Dozens of them were in contact with
the
25 said, there were some agents who were leftovers from the single-party
1 system where we did some other kind of work. We had to deregister some of
2 our agents, to find them some shelter because some of the things that we
3 did in the single-party system we could no longer do in a multi-party
4 system, so we had to restructure.
5 Q. I'm just trying to get a rough idea because you've tried to tell
6 us that Mr. Tanic was a very small-fry in the hierarchy of agents. How
7 many agents were paid 7 to 8.000 marks, which might have been as much as
8 80 to 160 months worth of salary? How many of those big fish?
9 A. Well, let me tell you one thing, in 1993, that was the year
10 when --
11 Q. No. Could you just answer my question. Please.
12 A. Well, I don't know whether you want to really be able to
13 understand my answer.
14 At that time we put the stress to intelligence work.
15 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Mijatovic, the reasons for having them are not
16 being asked of you. The question is: Roughly, roughly, how many agents
17 were paid 7 to 8.000 marks in 1993?
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In
1993 in
19 what you're asking me about; is that correct?
20 JUDGE BONOMY: I think Mr. Hannis will be happy with that for a
21 start.
22 MR. HANNIS:
23 Q. Yes, for now. Thank you.
24 A. A dozen or so approximately, if you're insisting, but this figure
25 could be greater or smaller, but that would be for intelligence work.
1 JUDGE BONOMY: Very well. We --
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have to note that, and that's a
3 very important thing.
4 JUDGE BONOMY: Is this a suitable time to interrupt?
5 MR. HANNIS: Yes.
6 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Your Honour, may I address the Chamber
7 for a second?
8 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, Mr. Fila.
9 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] You know that I don't make any
10 objections about the time, but please bear in mind that I have a third
11 witness to examine, and videolink is limited in time. I took 25 minutes
12 to examine my witness, and the Prosecutor has already taken 45 minutes,
13 and judging by the documents that he indicated he would be using, he would
14 be asking him questions for two days.
15 I have a third witness, and I would really like to examine him
16 too. Could he please stick by the regulations, by the provisions for the
17 first two, and then I will not insist for the third one. Thank you.
18 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, can you assist us?
19 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I will -- there's a lot of material with
20 this witness that relates to my case. It's not limited to just Mr. Tanic,
21 and under the rules I understand the cross-examining party is permitted to
22 go into those areas that relate to his case. I'd like to do that. I
23 understand the time constraints. I'll try to go as quickly as I can.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, the overarching provision is that generally
25 the cross-examination should be confined to the time for
1 examination-in-chief, but where there's good reason then it can be
2 extended on the basis obviously that time will be made up elsewhere so
3 that the overall picture will not become distorted.
4 There plainly were occasions when Defence cross-examination far
5 exceeded examination-in-chief, and the reasons for that were explained at
6 the time.
7 Mr. Hannis's indication is that there is much in his own case that
8 he feels it appropriate to explore with this witness, and we consider that
9 that is an appropriate reason for extending the time. We're also
10 conscious of his undertaking to be as brief as he can.
11 You also know, of course, Mr. Fila, that you have the videolink
12 arranged for tomorrow and Friday as well, so there is plainly ample time
13 to deal with this. We are conscious of the problem, and we're --
14 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] This is the first time I hear of it. I
15 wasn't aware of the fact that we would have a videolink arranged for
16 tomorrow. I was told that we would have videolink only for today.
17 JUDGE BONOMY: I'm sorry, that's not the information I have.
18 Perhaps that can be clarified.
19 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
20 JUDGE BONOMY: There appears to have been some miscommunication,
21 Mr. Fila. Because of the number of applications made, arrangements have
22 been made on the assumption that the evidence could spill over, and the
23 link will be available tomorrow. Now, hopefully that will be sufficient,
24 but if it's not, for some reason it will also be available on Friday, but
25 we're not anticipating now that that will be necessary.
1 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I'm absolutely sure that I will end
2 today as I anticipated. And Mr. Prosecutor may call Mr. Mijatovic, just
3 as I did Mr. Vasiljevic, because I brought Mr. Mijatovic here to challenge
4 evidence by Mr. Tanic, and that's why I need him. But if the Prosecutor
5 needs him for this or some other case in some other respect, then he may
6 call him.
7 JUDGE BONOMY: That's not the practice we follow here, Mr. Fila,
8 and I can't at the moment see on what legal basis in the system we have
9 the Prosecutor could be calling witnesses at this stage. He has to
10 cross-examine witnesses called by the Defence to deal with any issues that
11 he feels are necessary -- it's necessary to explore, and therefore he will
12 be allowed to continue and hopefully if we don't debate the matter for too
13 long we'll make fairly rapid progress and perhaps achieve a compromise
14 solution for both.
15 We'll now break and we will resume at 20 past.
16 Mr. Mijatovic, the Court now has to have a break, and it will be
17 for just under half an hour on this occasion, and we will resume at 20
18 minutes past 11.00. You can take a breather while we have this break.
19 --- Recess taken at
20 --- On resuming at
21 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Mijatovic, we'll continue now with the
22 cross-examination.
23 Mr. Hannis.
24 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour.
25 Q. Mr. Mijatovic, you've described that one time you made payment of
1 money to Mr. Tanic and you video recorded that without his knowledge. Was
2 that the only time that he was paid money by the service?
3 A. I think it was not the only time, but I think the other occasions
4 were linked to special occasions, the new year, for instance, and they
5 were much lower sums. I don't know what they were exactly. Because we
6 would reward all our collaborators on such occasions, so I can't remember,
7 to tell you the truth, how much he may have received, because this was not
8 something I was interested in.
9 Q. Where in the records of the service would that information be
10 found, the total amounts paid to Mr. Tanic during the time he worked for
11 you?
12 A. According to the rules of service which were in force at the time
13 I was there, when cooperation ceases with a collaborator all documents
14 relating to that collaborator are destroyed. So my answer is nowhere.
15 Q. Thank you. In answer to a question from Mr. Fila at page 15
16 today, you mentioned at that Mr. Tanic was a double agent, that you didn't
17 trust him, and, "We used him to double-cross the English service." And
18 double-cross is sort of a standard operating procedure in your profession,
19 isn't it?
20 A. Yes. I cannot say exactly when from the standpoint of our rules
21 and procedures he became a double agent. I can't tell you when that was,
22 but I know that this must have been roughly in 1997, if I can be of
23 assistance.
24 Q. Thank you. And I think you told us before that the last time you
25 had contact with him was December of 1997. Is that right?
1 A. Now let me see whether it was December or January. I assume it
2 was one of those two months, but not later. We did have telephone
3 contact, that is Tanic and myself, through a third person who was the
4 contact. We did have telephone communication through this contact, and
5 then he completely went over to the British side, and then I got in
6 contact with the British agent, Mr. Busby whom we had processed when he
7
came to
8 consultations, and I later realised that this was connected to my
9 testifying in The Hague Tribunal. Of this with Tanic misled Busby.
10 Q. Let me stop you there. You've gone beyond answering my question,
11 and if we can try and focus on my question, just answer the question we'll
12 get done sooner.
13 You mentioned that you had telephone contact then after December
14 1997 or January 1998 through the third party who I take it is the person
15 you named in -- in private session. An operative who worked for your
16 agency was the person who was speaking with Mr. Tanic by telephone;
17 correct?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And up until when or for how long did that go on? I guess -- let
20 me ask it this way: When did you decide that Mr. Tanic had gone
21 completely over to the British side? When was that, approximately?
22 A. I said probably at the beginning of 1997, but I cannot claim with
23 certainty that it was at the beginning of the year, but there is a high
24 degree of reliability that this was a person who was in contact with the
25 British intelligence service and that with -- in relation to us he's not
1 absolutely sincere.
2 Now, this is a professional issue which should take a lot of time
3 if we were to discuss it, and I'm sure you don't want that.
4 In 1999, because of suspicion that he really is not sincere
5 towards the service, the security centre arrested Tanic. He was given
6 certain assignment. After that, he went abroad and took the other side,
7 and I think I have said enough, that he simply went over to the other
8 side. I think that's quite clear. I don't think anything is in doubt to
9 that respect.
10 Q. He went --
11 A. He never returned to the country again.
12 Q. He went abroad in 1999 after -- that was after he and his wife
13 were arrested, if you will --
14 A. After the arrest.
15 Q. -- by the JSO. They basically kidnapped them off the street,
16 didn't they? Put bags over their heads and held them for three days?
17 A. He was not arrested by the JSO but the State Security Service.
18 The JSO was acting upon instructions for the operatives. The operatives
19 of the State Security Service arrested him. There was an interview with
20 him to clear up his relationships with the British intelligence. He was
21 given certain assignments, and with the approval of the service he went
22 abroad and he stayed there, and then he appeared in The Hague Tribunal, as
23 we all know.
24 Q. Well, you write about that in your book "Requiem for a State
25 Secret," don't you?
1 A. Yes, very briefly.
2 Q. Do you write about it in your second book as well?
3 A. To tell you the truth, I may have referred to it in a sentence or
4 two. Not about Tanic, but I didn't discuss Tanic himself in the second
5 book.
6 Q. Well, I think it's in your first book, and I'm looking at an
7 exhibit, an excerpt from your book which is Exhibit P2915, and there's a
8
chapter or a section called "Mihajlovic's trip to
9 writing about that?
10 A. Of course, indeed.
11 Q. And in October 2001 Dusan Mihajlovic who had previously been head
12 of the New Democracy Party was the minister
of interior for
13 your boss; correct?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And in that chapter you talk about an October 2001 trip
16 Mr. Mihajlovic took to
17 Right?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Let me read you a little portion about that and you tell me if
20 this is an accurate translation or at least is consistent with your
21 memory. You say: "My French friends gave me the details two days after
22 his return," meaning Mr. Mihajlovic. I take that you're referring to
23 other secret service or French secret service operatives who gave you the
24 information?
25 A. No. I'm referring to my personal friends.
1 Q. Okay. And they just happened to know the details of the meeting
2 between your minister, Mr. Mihajlovic, and Mr. Tanic? These are just
3 casual friends who know the details about that meeting?
4 A. This was unofficial.
5 Q. Who do those friends work for?
6 A. It was just due to circumstances.
7 Q. Who do those French friends of yours work for?
8 A. For no one. They're my friends. Does a friend have to work for
9 someone?
10 Q. Were they paid by you?
11 A. I said they were my friends. Maybe the interpreter is not
12 interpreting properly. You know what a friend is.
13 Q. Sometimes friend pays -- friends pay friends for doing jobs for
14 them. Did you pay them or did your service pay them?
15 A. I do not pay my friends.
16 And I would like to ask Your Honour to intervene. I consider this
17 to be pressure on me during my testimony.
18 JUDGE BONOMY: The question's very simple, Mr. Mijatovic, and
19 you've answered it. I doubt if you're going to be asked it again.
20 Please continue, Mr. Hannis.
21 MR. HANNIS:
22 Q. Can you give us the names of these two friends? And we could do
23 that in private session if you want.
24 A. I cannot. My friends are more important than anything to me. To
25 betray a friend is like betraying one's homeland. That is my life's
1 motto.
2 Q. Is betraying a friend more important than your oath to tell the
3 truth?
4 A. I am telling the truth, but friends are friends, and I don't want
5 to put them in an awkward situation.
6 Q. That's not my question. My question was: Is betraying a friend
7 more important than your oath to tell the truth here now?
8 A. I am telling the truth. My friends informed me.
9 Q. And you said you cannot tell us their names. You mean you will
10 not tell us their names; correct?
11 A. I told you what my principle in life is. You're linking
12 friendship to something quite different.
13 Q. The reason I'm asking --
14 A. You're asking about payments and things like that.
15 Q. The reason I'm asking, sir, is because I'm having a difficult time
16 understanding how two friends, I guess it's at least two, friends of
17 yours, French friends, happen to know about a conversation or details of a
18 meeting between the Serbian minister of interior and Mr. Tanic, who was at
19 that time sort of on the run. How would they happen to be in a place
20 where they would know the details of that meeting and that conversation?
21 Can you explain that for us?
22 A. First of all, Tanic and Mihajlovic were not alone during that
23 conversation, and I continue to say that it was due to circumstances.
24 There were several people present.
25 Q. Including your friends.
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Can you tell us the names of the other people present who were not
3 your friends?
4 A. I can't remember now whether it was Djordjevic, Petrovic, and I
5 don't know who else. Goran Petrovic. The Chief of Cabinet, Djordjevic,
6 the owner of the restaurant, the personnel, et cetera.
7 Q. Well, I assume -- I assume, then, that this would be reflected in
8 the records --
9 A. This was in a public place.
10 Q. Okay. But I assume there's some kind of report or record of this
11 meeting in the service archives; correct?
12 A. I don't know that.
13 Q. So what you wrote in the book is based on what your friends told
14 you?
15 A. That's right.
16 Q. Let me go on with the rest. I'm sorry we got side-tracked.
17 You said: "True, several months before, Mihajlovic had asked me
18 about Tanic, his relationship with the RDB, disagreements with the service
19 at the time of the NATO aggression." And then -- is that correct?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. And then you go on and say: "I told him as much as I could, that
22 he was an agent of a foreign service and of our own, that he worked for
23 money, that he was a bad man, and that I would check what had been
24 happening during the NATO aggression."
25 Is that correct? That's what's in your book.
1 A. Correct.
2 Q. And then you say: "I checked and said he had cheated. Scores are
3 settled somewhat differently in times of war. There were kidnappings and
4 beatings, and his wife had been kidnapped."
5 Correct?
6 A. All that is correct. That's what I was saying a moment ago.
7 Q. And then you go on and say: "I realised another important thing.
8 He had been kidnapped by members of the JSO."
9 That's right, isn't it?
10 A. Correct.
11 Q. Now --
12 A. But not for their own needs, but for the needs of the operatives.
13 Q. All right. Are you aware that Mr. Mihajlovic has written a book
14 about his experiences, including some of his experiences while a minister
15 of the interior?
16 A. Yes, I am aware of that.
17 Q. And have you read that book?
18 A. No.
19 Q. Let me move on to another item, and I'll come back to that.
20 You said that you met Tanic five times in your entire life. Is
21 that correct?
22 A. I said a few times. Now, whether it's five, six, or four, I'm not
23 sure, but somewhere midway would be five.
24 Q. Well, at page 18, line 11 today, you said: "I met Tanic five
25 times in my entire life." Was that correct or you're not sure now?
1 A. Five times -- I didn't count. You're attaching significance to
2 this. Fourteen years later I'm trying to assist. You're insisting on
3 this number.
4 As far as I can recollect, for example, five times, because really
5 I didn't keep any records or minutes, and 14 years later, in view of the
6 fact that I had up to 2.000 contacts a year, five times is all right, if
7 the number means anything, but it is certainly a single-digit number.
8 Q. All right. All right. In answer to one of your questions from
9 Mr. Fila about whether you conveyed certain information to or from
10 Mr. Tanic, you said: "How could I have when we were completely
11 independent? We didn't depend on Mr. Sainovic or others. The service was
12 headed by Mr. Stanisic, who was chief of the service."
13 And that's -- you recall saying that today? That's at page 22,
14 line 10. Do you recall saying that?
15 A. Yes. Yes.
16 Q. And that's an accurate reflection of the attitude of the State
17 Security Service, isn't it?
18 A. I didn't quite understand your question. Could you clarify the
19 purpose of that question, please?
20 Q. Well, you don't need to know the purpose to answer the question,
21 sir. Doesn't it reflect the attitude?
22 A. The service was headed by Jovica Stanisic. Work instructions were
23 received from Jovica Stanisic. Never during my 30 years of service, and
24 especially for these 15 years, did I receive any instructions from
25 Slobodan Milosevic or any politician of the day, not a single one, nor was
1 this possible.
2 Q. But why was that not possible?
3 A. That is how the service was structured. It was a multi-party
4 system. Jovica Stanisic did not allow us to get into any kind of contact
5 with the leaders of the political parties at the republican or local
6 levels. The policies of the service were in the hands of Jovica
7 Stanisic. We didn't have any direct contact with the political
8 authorities, as far as I am concerned. I can't guarantee for others, but
9 the
head of the largest centre in
10 Serbian intelligence service for a time, and as an assistant of Jovica
11 Stanisic, I did not have any contact with politician from that period.
12 Q. But in your position you are aware, aren't you, that Mr. Stanisic
13 had a direct line to Mr. Milosevic? Even though he's the head of the
14 service for
15
16 A. I don't know how they maintained contact, nor can I talk about it
17 apart from what I wrote in my book when we had two protocol visits to
18 Slobodan Milosevic and which I covered in detail. But work instructions,
19 tasks did not come from him. The method of communication between the head
20 of the service and the president of the republic or other politicians is
21 something I am not aware of.
22 Q. Okay. Thank you. Let me return for a moment, because I did find
23 my note about Mr. Mihajlovic's book, and let me tell you what he says
24 about the meeting with Tanic and you tell me whether that's consistent
25 with your knowledge of that event.
1 He says, and I'm reading from -- the exhibit number is P2916, and
2 the English excerpt is for -- is at ERN K 053-8559. And I'm reading page
3 5 of that.
4 He says: "The next time I saw the ill-fated Tanic was only after
5 5
October, and this was in
6
Now, in your book you say it was
the 1st of October in
7 Were there two meetings or does Mr. Mihajlovic have it wrong, or is one of
8 you changing dates and places to misinform readers? Can you explain that?
9 A. I do not wish to interpret the minister of the interior. As far
10 as I can remember, I don't think I said the 1st of October. I may have
11 said a date in October, but I don't remember saying the 1st of October. I
12 don't even know whether I went into the dates. You have it before you, so
13 you can check. I would rather not comment on what Mr. Mihajlovic said. I
14 stand by what I wrote in my book.
15 Q. And then he says that Tanic told me about what had happened, and
16 he said: "He and his wife were abducted by some people wearing balaclavas
17 who put plastic bags on their heads and held them somewhere for three days
18 and nights. With the bags on their heads the whole time they were
19 subjected to the worst possible forms of physical and psychological
20 torture."
21 Did you know about that?
22 A. I have partially read the conversation with agent Tanic, and this
23 exists in writing, so perhaps it would be best for you to get hold of it
24 so as to avoid me giving any rough estimates. It was not the JSO who
25 talked to him but the operatives, and there's a detailed report about this
1 and you can ask for it.
2 Q. Okay. Do you have a copy of that report?
3 A. No.
4 Q. When was the last time you saw it?
5 A. This report? You mean the report about the interview with Tanic
6 in 1999?
7 Q. Yes. You mentioned an agent Ganic. Is that what you're talking
8 about?
9 A. I saw it in 2001.
10 Q. And do you know the agent's first name so we can try and locate
11 that report?
12 A. I don't know. There were several operatives talking to him. I
13 just looked to see what the topic was and why he was kidnapped. Only when
14 Tanic contacted me to establish telephone communication with me through a
15 third operative. Then I looked it up to see what was happening because I
16 thought it was strange that he wasn't in the country whereas the political
17 circumstances had changed.
18 MR. HANNIS: I see Mr. Petrovic up, Your Honour.
19 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I have the impression
20 that there's some confusion here, that in the question of Mr. Hannis, 56,
21 line 3, an agent Ganic is mentioned. I didn't hear the witness mention
22 any such name. I think there is a confusion with the name. Perhaps
23 Mr. Hannis could check. I don't think the witness mentioned any Ganic.
24 It's probably Tanic and not Ganic.
25 MR. HANNIS: I -- I thought I heard Ganic, but I see in the
1 transcript that it is agent Tanic. So thank you, Mr. Petrovic. I was
2 mistaken about that.
3 Q. Mr. Mijatovic, let me ask you about -- maybe this is what you're
4 talking about. I'll skip down a couple of paragraphs, and this is again
5
from Mr. Mihajlovic's book. He
says: "When I came back to
6 requested a report from the service about this. I cannot cite details
7 from this sensitive report, but I can say that the service put the Tanics
8 through hell because they were cross-checking the games he had played with
9 them."
10 Is that a fair characterisation of the report you recall reading,
11 that the Tanics were put through hell?
12 A. Well, you know, when someone says to put someone through hell, I
13 don't know what they mean by that. I would not like to try to interpret
14 what is said here. It's best if you read the report. Of course when one
15 writes a book of this kind, one tries to be dramatic. I probably did the
16 same in my first book. The books he wrote and the book I wrote, they are
17 not court documents. One should draw a distinction between literature and
18 statements made in court, and unfortunately here we are dealing with
19 literature.
20 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Mijatovic, it will probably come as no surprise
21 to you that there can be difficulties from time to time in locating
22 documents that could assist the Court from
the archives in
23 therefore it's perfectly legitimate for counsel to explore your personal
24 recollection, and he wants to know if what you read could be described as
25 putting that couple through hell.
1 Now, would you care to try and assist us more specifically than
2 passing the buck to the report, which we don't have access to at the
3 moment.
4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I really wish to assist. I just
5 said that the description putting someone through hell, it's a matter of
6 opinion. Of course they were not gentle with him. I'm sure he was put
7 under pressure, even physical pressure, that's certain, but it wasn't
8 torture, I think. However, the way he was brought there was very
9 unpleasant.
10 We were in a situation where our country was undergoing
11 airstrikes. I would simply have arrested him in the street. I wouldn't
12 have used those methods. But whether it's putting someone through hell or
13 not, I can't say. Of course it's unpleasant. When you're brought in by
14 the police in times like those, especially as this was a double agent,
15 there must have been physical contact as well. There might have been
16 beating, I don't know, but I really cannot say anything precise about this
17 because I wouldn't like to mislead anyone.
18 If you are interested in this clarifying interview, as it's
19 called, you might try to find out what the service thought of him at the
20 time, why they were settling accounts with him in that way, what sort of
21 tasks he had and so on and so forth.
22 MR. HANNIS:
23 Q. Well --
24 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Mijatovic, was his wife mistreated?
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I really don't know. I know she was
1 brought in, but whether she was mistreated or not, I really don't know.
2 The situation in itself is an unpleasant one. It is linked to much
3 unpleasantness. I am not saying that it was something normal or
4 necessary, but I cannot interpret the actions taken by the then
5 leadership. I want to distance myself from that.
6 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, but bear in mind we're looking for your
7 recollection of a report which someone has described as indicating in the
8 report that the couple were put through hell. Now, is there nothing in
9 that report that you remember about how she was treated?
10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, maybe we do not agree about
11 the report. There is some confusion concerning Mihajlovic. In the
12 service there is a report on the whole action as regards Tanic and the
13 contents of the interview.
14 To the best of my recollection, and I'm really trying to be
15 helpful, that report about the interview with Tanic is about 20 pages
16 long, and he was interviewed about everything he had given the service up
17 to that point in time. Suggestions were made as to what he was suspected
18 of.
19 JUDGE BONOMY: Could you please simply deal with the question. Is
20 there nothing in that report that you remember about how she was treated?
21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't think it said that. I don't
22 think it said that. I cannot remember that anything was written down
23 about the wife or how she was treated. It would be almost incredible if
24 they were doing something bad to her that they would write it down. If
25 someone used illegal methods, of course they wouldn't put that in the
1 report. I don't believe that.
2 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
3 Mr. Hannis.
4 MR. HANNIS:
5 Q. I guess that ties in with the point that I wanted to get to later,
6 but now is as good a time as any.
7 Misinformation is something that was a way of doing business for
8 the service; correct? Isn't that something you do in -- in state security
9 work? You use misinformation.
10 A. That's not the essence --
11 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Two things, Your Honour, two points.
12 First, the witness already answered this question when you asked him
13 this. For an hour and a half this witness is being cross-examined, and my
14 examination was only 25 minutes long. That's not fair. The Prosecutor
15 cannot put questions for as long as he likes; otherwise, I cannot tell
16 people how long their testimony will last. The rule is that the
17 Prosecutor should take as long as we take. Of course we can tolerate some
18 discrepancies, but I have never seen in any trial and this is my sixth, I
19 think, that the cross-examination should take so much longer than the
20 examination-in-chief. That's how I organise my time. That's how I
21 organised in the case of Kesic. You said we should be brief. But this
22 takes us into all kinds of territory, and there is a limit somewhere. I
23 have to organise my case. I want to complete it.
24 I apologise for reacting like this, but now the Prosecutor is
25 repeating Your Honour's question. Your Honour's put the same question.
1 We are wasting time. My time is also being wasted. Well, we have to draw
2 a line somewhere. If I examined for one hour, he can examine for two, but
3 tell me so and then I can organise my time accordingly.
4 Thank you.
5 [Trial Chamber confers]
6 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Fila, it is generally the overall time used in
7 evidence that's crucial, and that applies in more than one way. You will
8 have whatever time you need to re-examine this witness on the various
9 matters that the Prosecutor has raised that you did not deal with in
10 examination-in-chief, but we consider that the cross-examination so far
11 has been directed to a very important issue in this case, and therefore
12 it's one of those circumstances in which there is good cause for extending
13 the period available to the opposition to cross-examine the witness.
14 As I explained to you earlier, Mr. Hannis will have to find ways
15 of making that up at a later stage in the overall calculation of the time
16 that's being used, to be fair to everyone. But when -- and if there's any
17 indication that he's -- he's straying off issues that are relevant to the
18 trial, then he will be stopped, but at this stage we're not prepared to do
19 that and we'll allow him to continue.
20 We do however, agree that the question he's just asked has been
21 answered and he should move to something more specific. Thank you.
22 Mr. Hannis.
23 MR. HANNIS: I'll do that, Your Honour, thank you.
24 Q. Mr. Mijatovic, a couple more references to your books, and this
25 regards access to documents.
1 The report about Mr. Tanic and his wife, if you were trying to
2 find that document yourself, it was about your wife and your family, and
3 based on your experience and knowledge of the service where would you go
4 to find that document? Where would that be kept? Who would I talk to?
5 A. That document, I assume -- I can only assume as I have no contacts
6 with the service now, I would look for it in the BIA, in the section
7 referring to the British secret service, and I'm sure it would be found
8 there.
9 Q. Thank you very much. Now, in your -- in your book, your first
10 book, "Requiem for a State Secret," I think that's at page 169 in the
11 B/C/S. It's in chapter 17. And this is Exhibit 2915. Chapter 17 is
12 about meetings with Hague investigators in
13 draft translation I have says that you were denying the ICTY access to DB
14 archives, which is consistent with your supervisor or your boss,
15 Mr. Petrovic's view which is quoted as
being: "This is why
16 war with the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. We're not going to have
17 investigations or searches of our archives, not while I am the chief of
18 the department."
19 That was -- that was his attitude and your attitude then about the
20 ICTY having access to the service's archives; correct?
21 A. You have read it all. It was our standpoint that without the
22 permission of our state organs, our archives were not open to anyone who
23 wanted to come in. Our archives were available, as we demonstrated to you
24 when we handed over to you 64 files about the KLA crimes in Kosovo. We
25 also had cooperation with individual investigators when Severin was at
1 issue, abductions, and other matters.
2 Q. Thank you.
3 A. One couldn't just come in and say, "Give us the documents." We
4 had our rules --
5 Q. Thank you.
6 A. -- and our legislation to comply with. If there had been no
7
cooperation, Milosevic would never have arrived in
8 Q. Thank you. Let me ask you about another page in that book. Page
9 182. You are talking and say: "I had some discreet conversations with
10 N. Sainovic in 2001. I will not reveal what he said. It would not be
11 correct towards him or towards the truth, towards the history."
12 Will you tell us now what those conversations were about?
13 A. Well, if you had read the entire passage the question would be
14 superfluous. You're probably aiming at something else.
15 Q. I can't read Serbian.
16 A. You should have taken the whole passage relating to Mr. Sainovic.
17 This includes his standpoint on the Hague Tribunal. As for the rest of
18 our conversation, it was a man-to-man conversation about his family, his
19 personal tragedies, and so on. And I'm a very discreet person. If you
20 continue reading you will see that Mr. Sainovic also touched on the topic
21 of
22 abduction of Milosevic he said it would be good if a law was passed on The
23 Hague, that he was aware that he had to go
to
24 go there in a legal manner. He felt that the way Milosevic went there was
25 illegal.
1 And I think it says in another book that he even gave me a draft
2 that the Socialist Party had done. It was a bill on a law on cooperation
3
with
4 in my second book. And I gave that draft to Mr. Djindjic, and I
5 said, "Prime Minister, Mr. Sainovic is sending you this as a sign of
6 goodwill because some things should be made legal with reference to The
7 Hague." And Djindjic's opponents wanted the same.
8 Q. Let me ask you about why you left your job the first time in
9 1999. What was the reason for leaving the service then?
10 A. In 1998 Mr. Jovica Stanisic was replaced and the -- Rade Markovic
11 became chief of the department and Nikola Curcic became his deputy. In
12 the meantime I heard that he had died. On the arrival in the service they
13 made some staff changes. Even after the dismissal of Jovica Stanisic I
14 remained assistant chief of the counter-intelligence department, but this
15 was just on paper. I just carried out part of those tasks formally. I
16 was dissatisfied because two men who were not from our department had been
17 appointed and they did not have a good reputation within the service.
18 Previously we had had information about Rade Markovic's close connections
19 with the Milosevic family and his connections with --
20 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Mijatovic, please. Mr. Fila's anxious that we
21 get through this and that you're not kept longer than necessary. It would
22 have been simple enough for you to say that you were unhappy about the way
23 you had been passed over for promotion.
24 Mr. Hannis.
25 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
1 Q. Mr. Mijatovic, I want to ask you about something that David Gajic
2 said about that transition when Mr. Stanisic was removed, and I'm looking
3 Exhibit 29 --
4 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, just a moment. The witness is trying
5 to say something.
6 MR. HANNIS: Oh, I'm sorry.
7 JUDGE BONOMY: What is it you're trying to say, Mr. Mijatovic?
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I had no ambitions. I left the
9 service because I knew what sort of men these were and where they would
10 lead the service. What they did in 1999 and 2000 confirmed in the worst
11 possible way that I was right in my decision.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, now you'll see how easy it is to create the
13 wrong impression if you go into detail that's quite unnecessary. Thank
14 you for that clarification, but you could have equally given that answer
15 in one sentence.
16 Please continue, Mr. Hannis.
17 MR. HANNIS: Thank you. For the Court and counsel, I'm referring
18 to Exhibit P2914, which is an ICTY statement of David Gajic.
19 Q. Mr. Mijatovic, you -- I see Mr. Ivetic standing up, Your Honour.
20 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic.
21 MR. IVETIC: I'm shocked to find the Prosecution would actually
22 refer to this exhibit which I think the Court is somewhat aware of the
23 history behind it and we are in the process of doing a motion for
24 sanctions relative to the same.
25 Just to refresh the Court's recollection, we asked while Mr. Gajic
1 was alive for any indicia of the interviews conducted by the Office of the
2 Prosecutor with Mr. Gajic. The Office of the Prosecution advised us that
3 no such evidence in written form or in recorded form existed of the
4 interviews after Mr. Gajic died, and indeed after this case had been on
5 for one year. Then the Office of the Prosecution in response to our
6 motion to bar contact with witnesses at that point in time gave us for the
7 first time a 27-page signed statement of Mr. Gajic that they had just
8 conveniently found coincidentally at that point in time which was just
9 given to us recently and which of course we have been unable to undertake
10 any steps to verify and therefore I would object to the use of this
11 exhibit based upon those grounds and the failure of the Prosecution to
12 adhere to the rules, in particular Rules 66 and 68 with respect to giving
13 us this material in a timely fashion so that we may prepare a defence.
14 And if they were going to be introducing this exhibit into evidence now, I
15 would strongly object to the same and if need be I can have a motion for
16 sanctions abbreviated and filed later today. Thank you.
17 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis.
18 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, this statement was taken in connection
19 with the Haradinaj case, and this was one that we did not find when we did
20 our searches before the trial started. The only thing we had found was
21 that there had been an interview with Mr. Gajic on another occasion on
22 which the tape recording did not work and no statement was written. Upon
23 doing our updated searches for witnesses we discovered this statement, and
24 we turned it over to the Defence as soon as we discovered it.
25 I have no further explanation at this time. I know that the
1 search was done for Gajic and any materials related to him on more than
2 one occasion, and it was only on this most recent occasion that we found
3 this statement in our records.
4 MR. IVETIC: And for the record, we still have not been given the
5 notes, recordings, et cetera, for this particular interview. My request
6 was very specific with respect to any and all recorded material from any
7 interviews of Mr. Gajic. I was told none such existed and now despite
8 having no records of any interview existing, we have a signed statement.
9 I don't know how a signed statement is created if there are no interview
10 notes, recordings, et cetera, all the other materials that I had sought.
11 And the only reason this motion has not been filed, we are trying to find
12 the actual response from the office of the Prosecution that delineated
13 exactly the response to our very specific and very broad request with
14 respect to Mr. Gajic's interviews that occurred over many days with the
15 Office of the Prosecution.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: One of the things that continues to puzzle me here
17 is why parties always find it necessary to preface questions by reference
18 to a statement which in itself won't be admissible as evidence in support
19 of their case unless the witness agrees with the propositions in it, and
20 why these propositions cannot be put without specific reference to the
21 statement is difficult to understand.
22 If all you're doing, Mr. Hannis, is giving the Defence an
23 indication of the source but you intend to formulate questions for the
24 witness to deal with that don't depend on the reliability of Gajic, then
25 why don't you just do that?
1 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I guess it's the practice that I'm used
2 to where I need to have a good faith basis for asking my question and by
3 indicating where I am -- where I'm drawing it from, I'm trying to indicate
4 to counsel why I'm asking the question and why I have reason to ask the
5 question.
6 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic, there's a difference between the
7 stand-alone value of this statement, which at this stage will be nil, and
8 the value of anything the witness says having been prompted by the
9 statement. In light of that, do you still maintain the objection?
10 MR. IVETIC: As long as the Prosecution sticks to what they've
11 just represented, I think we're fine.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: Just to complete this and without asking for any
13 further response, it does seem to us, Mr. Hannis, strange that such a
14 specific request could be made for material and that because that material
15 related to the Haradinaj case, it wasn't located for this case and wasn't
16 passed on. We find that a difficult situation to understand. It would be
17 much more relevant, of course, should the Prosecution have sought to admit
18 the statement of Gajic as evidence in the case. However, for the moment
19 please proceed with your question.
20 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
21 Q. Mr. Mijatovic, would you agree with the -- well, first of all let
22 me ask you this: Were you aware of anybody, any organ or body or
23 committee called the Joint Command for Kosovo and Metohija?
24 A. No.
25 Q. You -- were you familiar with a group of men, including Mr. Minic,
1 Milomir Minic, Mr. Dusan Matkovic, and Zoran Andjelkovic, who were sent by
2 the SPS to Kosovo in the summer of 1998 to try and deal with the problems
3 there?
4 A. No, I didn't engage in those activities. I was assistant for
5 counter-intelligence in the State Security Service. I heard about this
6 for the first time in the courtrooms of The Hague Tribunal.
7 Q. About those three gentlemen going to Kosovo in the summer of
8 1998? This is the first time you've heard about it?
9 A. I was not involved with Serbian or Montenegrin politicians in
10 those days. I engaged in counter-intelligence.
11 As to reports whether a politician went here or there, I could
12 have read in the media, but they were not the object of my activities.
13 Foreign intelligence services were my concern. That was my main
14 preoccupation.
15 Q.
And in 1998 wasn't one of the biggest threats to
16 possibility of an attack by NATO because of things that were happening in
17 Kosovo?
18 A. I did deal with those things, and you can read about that in my
19 second book in great detail in fact. I delved into the NATO bombing and
20 everything else related to that. I don't know what these four gentlemen
21 have to do with the NATO bombing.
22 Q. In your -- in your assessment, isn't one of the reasons that
23 Mr. Stanisic was removed from his position was because Mr. Milosevic was
24 not pleased with the information that the RDB in Kosovo was providing him
25 about the situation there? Isn't that one of the reasons?
1 A. I don't know what all the reasons were that prompted Mr. Milosevic
2 to renounce Jovica Stanisic as the leading figure of the service. In my
3 first book the"Requiem for a State Secret," I did speak of the 30th of
5 you can find this in the book, and he said that the situation in Kosovo
6 was getting out of control, and I quoted this in the book, that the unruly
7 behaviour of the police could no longer be tolerated.
8 I remember his statement, and I also remember the following, if I
9 may be of assistance --
10 Q. No, if you'll stop now because you've answered me question.
11 A. -- that the service --
12 Q. Let me ask you another one. Were you not aware that Mr. Stanisic
13 himself attended at least one meeting of the Joint Command for Kosovo and
14 Metohija in the summer of 1998? You didn't know about that?
15 A. Let me assist you. I do not know that such a command existed nor
16 did Jovica Stanisic report to me, because in a service such as ours it was
17 me who briefed Mr. Stanisic and not the other way round. I was not aware
18 of the daily schedules of Mr. Stanisic.
19 Q. What about Mr. Gajic? Did you have any working relationship with
20 him?
21 A. With Mr. Gajic. Let me see, the 27th, the 28th -- 29th of
23 with Mico Nikolic to carry out security duties stemming from the agreement
24 Holbrooke-Milosevic.
25 Q. That doesn't seem to answer my question. With David Gajic did you
1 have a working relationship?
2 A. I said that I had only this one contact with Mr. Gajic and that
3 was when I came to carry out security and counter-intelligence activities
4 in accordance with the peace agreement signed by Holbrooke and Milosevic.
5 I may have seen Gajic for an hour or two during my work. You can find
6 that in my book so as to save time. No other contacts.
7 Let me add that the day I reached Mr. Gajic in the afternoon at
8 5.00 Stanisic was replaced so that the whole thing was linked to that.
9 And the next day I continued doing my work, which had nothing to do with
10 Mr. Gajic.
11 Q. Had Mr. Gajic already been removed by the 1st of October from his
12 position as the RDB coordinator in Kosovo?
13 A. I think not, because he was there when I arrived. He was there,
14 and he was doing his work.
15 Q.
In your book "Ambush for
16 conversations between
17 conversations between General Mladic and General White. Are these
18 intercepted conversations that were made by the service?
19 A. I have attached a document of the conversation between White and
20 General Mladic in order to show the absurdity of the situation.
21 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Mijatovic, please listen to the question and
22 answer the question you're asked, which is whether these intercepted --
23 intercepts were made by the RDB. It's yes or no.
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I found those documents in a safe
25 box. It is coded. So I assume these were documents prepared by the
1 service as there are no markings on the document. Mladic's document is
2 dated 1993, so it is 14 years old.
3 MR. HANNIS:
4 Q. And when and where did you find those documents?
5 A. About 10 years ago, one of them, and this one, in 1998. I don't
6 remember who the source was, who gave me the document. The other one --
7 as for the one 10 years ago, it's difficult to remember. The letters were
8 unusual. You will see in the book. It is an attachment.
9 Q. Well, I'm confused now. You said that somebody gave you one.
10 Before, you said you found them. Can you tell us where you came into
11 possession of these documents?
12 A. Which one are you referring to, the first document about Mladic?
13 That was 10 years ago. I found it somewhere. I don't know, among some
14 papers I received. How I received them I can't remember. I received
15 daily about 200 documents, so 10 years ago it's difficult to be precise.
16 And I also cannot claim who drafted it. Some other service --
17 Q. And --
18 A. -- which is not excluded. But I do wish to assist.
19 Q. Yes, I can see that. And you kept that document --
20 A. We get -- I'm sorry. We do get hold of documents that foreign
21 services have as well.
22 Q. And did you keep that document for 10 years so you could write
23 about it in your book?
24 A. Is that relevant for what I'm testifying about today?
25 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, please answer.
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I believed that the Serbian people
2 need to know everything that was going on during the last 15 years, at
3 least how talks were conducted with Mladic, how they prepared themselves,
4 how they set the targets, how Holbrooke ordered that the insignia be
5
removed. I was aware of what I
was doing, but I believe that if
6 may open certain secret documents, then I, too, may open certain documents
7 to see the other side of our misfortunes, and I stand by what I said. If
8 that is the topic of your examination, I will be glad to explain all this
9 in even greater detail.
10 MR. HANNIS:
11 Q. So isn't it a fact, Mr. Mijatovic, that the way you operate is if
12 you feel it's appropriate or important or necessary, then you're willing
13 to provide misinformation, to lie, to do whatever you want? Isn't that a
14 fact?
15 A. I have never lied.
16 Q. Oh, is that correct, sir? Let me refer you to your book "Ambush
17 for
18 two times to your minister of interior, Mr. Mihajlovic. Isn't that
19 correct? That's in your book. Is that just fiction?
20 A. You need to read the whole text. You are now trying, and I
21 understand that, to challenge my testimony.
22 Q. Can you answer my question? Yes or no?
23 A. I have answered. What I write and what I wrote the "Ambush for
24
25 certain measure of humour. So you cannot use something that is publishing
1 fiction, you can't use it in court. I understand your purpose, but I'm
2 quite at ease, and I am an honest man.
3 Q. So let me get this straight. Are your books then sold as fiction
4 or is it supposed to be real-life biography?
5 A. It is not a biography. It is publicistics.
6 Q. One last question, Mr. Mijatovic. Mr. Seselj made a filing in his
7 case entitled "Addendum to Motion for Trial Chambers to Investigate
8 Contempt Proceedings." This is Exhibit P2927, and in that he attaches
9 what purports to be a statement from you. If goes on for several pages, I
10 don't know, 30 or 40 pages. Do you recall making that statement for
11 Mr. Seselj to use?
12 A. I don't know that.
13 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Can we see what the Prosecutor is
14 talking about? Will you tell us what you're talking about, please? Could
15 the witness read those 40 pages? He can -- if you're giving him so much
16 time, he can go on reading until the end of the week.
17 MR. HANNIS:
18 Q. I just want to know if you refer making such a statement for
19 Mr. Seselj. It's quite lengthy. You don't recall having done that?
20 A. I didn't do this for him.
21 Q. Oh. But you did make such a statement; correct?
22 A. I don't know which statement.
23 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, let's have the date and let's have an
24 indication of the document for the witness so that he can deal with it
25 specifically.
1 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, it's Exhibit P2927, and it was made in
2
3 Q. Does that help, Mr. Mijatovic? About three months ago.
4 A. Would you please ask me the question?
5 JUDGE BONOMY: You need to tell us if you remember making the
6 statement first of all. Do you need more information before you can
7 answer that, or do you remember making this statement?
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I do remember this statement, but
9 the way in which the Prosecutor is putting the question, I don't
10 understand. I didn't make any statement to Seselj. As far as I know,
11 Seselj is in
12 JUDGE BONOMY: Just for the sake of being accurate on this,
13 Mr. Hannis, you should put to him to whom the statement was given.
14 MR. HANNIS:
15 Q. Well, on the document itself, Mr. Mijatovic, there is a
16 certification or a verification which says: "This is to certify that
17 Zoran Mijatovic signed this statement in person and confirmed the
18 signature on this document as his own." It was verified using an identity
19 card issued by the Belgrade MUP. I guess that's your number. At the 3rd
20 municipal court in
21 Do you remember having given such a statement? Maybe not to
22 Mr. Seselj or for Mr. Seselj, but about the
events in -- in
23 connection with your service.
24 A. Well, you see, if you had put it that way, it would have been
25 easier.
I did make such a statement.
1
Q. And finally, did you also --
were you involved in an investigation
2 involving a transfer of approximately 900.000 Deutschmarks from Mihalj
3 Kertes to Mr. Sainovic?
4 A. I was involved.
5 Q. Thank you. I have no further --
6 A. I personally took a statement from Mr. Sainovic according to the
7 Law on Criminal Procedure.
8 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour. I have no further questions
9 for the witness.
10 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Hannis.
11 Mr. Fila.
12 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] For the record, could we register how
13 many hours the Prosecutor used in his counter-examination? I didn't have
14 that right when it was the case of Prosecution witnesses.
15 I also have another statement to make. If I had known there would
16 be a videolink tomorrow as well --
17 JUDGE BONOMY: Carry on.
18 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I assumed -- I'm sorry, I did assume
19 that he would organise this, but I didn't know that this was explicitly
20 organised, so I apologise if I said that I didn't know. I know there was
21 the intention, but I didn't know whether it was organised.
22 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, the time is available, Mr. Fila, but what do
23 you mean by you didn't have that right when it was the case of Prosecution
24 witnesses?
25 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Every time I was told how much time the
1 Prosecution used and we shared out the time left for us. Your Honour, I'm
2 not opposed to anything that is being done, but the rules have to be the
3 same for everyone. I plan my time. Believe me, it is very difficult. I
4 don't mind that he took so long, but I should have known.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: You should read the terms of the orders we've made
6 about time, which clearly allow for situations where additional time is
7 necessary. However, please continue with your re-examination of this
8 witness.
9 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I have only one question.
10 Re-examination by Mr. Fila:
11 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Mijatovic, Mr. Mijatovic, a lot of time was
12 spent on establishing the value of 2.000 German marks and why you said
13 that this was the equivalent of 20 to 40 salaries. You mentioned the
14 sanctions.
Will you tell us what the salaries were in
15 days because of the sanctions?
16 A.
I must tell you that in those days, as head of the
17 centre, I barely received 50 or 60 German marks.
18 Q. How many dollars is that? Because it is more understandable
19 here.
20 A. It must have been about 50 or so dollars.
21 Q. Secondly, as you were involved in counter-intelligence, were they
22 using those German marks to spend them abroad, not in the country?
23 A. Yes. In that particular case when he received 2.000 German marks
24 we were preparing him to work with another intelligence service, and this
25 included costs of petrol, hotel accommodation, et cetera. So that the
1 profit he himself made would be about 500 or 600 German marks. So he
2 didn't have such weight that he would receive that sum every year. This
3 was just an example.
4 Q. Thank you, Mr. Mijatovic. I apologise for having kept you so
5 long. It was not up to me.
6 Questioned by the Court:
7 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Mijatovic, the reference to 50 or 60 German
8 marks or dollars was for what period of time working? Is that for one
9 month or is it for one year or what?
10 A. Your Honour, we received our salaries in two parts, on the 1st and
11 the 15th of the month. So my half in 1993 was about 50 plus 50, but I
12 think, though I'm afraid to be specific, everything is measured very
13 precisely, but I think after a year and a half of sanctions that salary
14 was even lower, even though I was assistant chief of the service. We had
15 a very difficult time in those days.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: So do I correctly understand that you got about a
17 hundred Deutschmarks per month?
18 A. Yes. But this was the beginning of 1993. The -- the situation
19 became even more disastrous as time went by during the sanctions.
20 [Trial Chamber confers]
21 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Mijatovic, when you were asked whether your
22 book was an accurate biography or fiction, you said it was not a biography
23 but you gave some description of it which was not recorded on the
24 transcript here. Could you say again what it was that you offered as the
25 description of your book?
1
A. I said it belonged to the
genre of publicistics or journalism.
2 It's a book that uses some biographical data and certain documents to tell
3 a
certain story. My book is linked to my
interviews with
4 investigators and I explained why, and the book wanted in a specific way
5 to talk about the war crimes committed in the territory of the former
6
7 The second book that I wrote was prompted by the bombing of the
8
9 that the world will not take pride in and I wanted to show the other side
10 that the public was not aware of and that was the intelligence aspect of
11 those events. What we as a service sent reports to the head of the
12 service and the head of the service to our political leadership.
13 That was the idea. Of course this is not a document. This is not
14 a testimony. This is publicist writing when a certain degree of freedom
15 is allowed, as opposed to something called biography, court records, or a
16 statement according to Law on Criminal Procedure. This is a literature
17 and that is how my books were evaluated officially by historians and
18 politicians.
19 With the first book I had no problems. I did not have any
20 negative comments. I had good assessments by the director of the
21 institute for criminology, the historian Markovic, and others. Let me not
22 enumerate them all. I had quite a lot of conversations about this, media
23 reports and interviews. Unfortunately, I was dealing with a very serious
24 problem and from the standpoint of you sitting at the bench it is viewed
25 differently and I can understand that, but I'm telling you what my idea
1 was. A book can be read in different ways.
2 JUDGE BONOMY: It was put to you that on pages 40 to 42 of the
3 book you say that on three separate occasions you did lie and one of these
4 was to the minister Mihajlovic. Are you saying that's accurate or
5 inaccurate?
6 A. It is a work process that is involved, a communication that is
7 clear to everyone, and I'm really sorry, Your Honour, that you did not
8 understand the nuances from the book. This is a humouristic thing and
9 this was read in the Serbian parliament and met with laughter by the
10 deputies, and I'm sorry that you didn't gather the irony of this. I'm
11 really very sorry. I'm sure you have much more serious work to do than
12 read my book. This has nothing to do with my credibility.
13 This is just a remark, a relationship with the minister of the
14 interior. We had a specific relationship and sometimes when he asked such
15 things of me I couldn't refuse, but I would joke with him. I would do the
16 job, talk to the people and so on. I don't think it is a good idea to
17 focus on an excerpt which has nothing to do with the things being
18 discussed here which are of the greatest importance. I think we've lost a
19 great deal of time over such matters.
20 If you were to read the whole book and the context of the story,
21 you would see that this was just a decent measure of irony.
22 JUDGE BONOMY: We have not had the opportunity of reading the
23 book, but we shall be reading the bits that have been referred to and, if
24 necessary, the context in which the book was -- or these passages were
25 written. So we will take account of what you say when we look at these
1 various passages.
2 Thank you very much, Mr. Mijatovic, for coming to give evidence.
3 That completes your evidence here, and you are free to leave the room in a
4 moment. The court staff beside you -- the court staff --
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour, for your
6 patience to hear me out.
7 JUDGE BONOMY: The court staff will now take your earphones from
8 you but please stay where you are until the court adjourns in and minute
9 or two.
10 Mr. Fila, can you give me an indication of the length of time you
11 anticipate being with the next witness, because you were much shorter with
12 Mr. Mijatovic than we -- than we expected.
13 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I will take less than an hour for the
14 next witness. So please don't grant the Prosecutor a week. I intend to
15 complete my case on Friday, so can the gentleman organise his cross
16 properly, and I will do so as briefly as possible, because this is what
17 you requested of us, and that was a good example, the way we did Kesic,
18 and then we hear the cross for four hours. But never mind. I'm joking
19 now.
20 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis --
21 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Anger doesn't last long with me.
22 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, could you give us an indication of how
23 long cross-examination is likely to be.
24 MR. HANNIS: An hour. I'll be shorter with this witness than I
25 was with Mr. Mijatovic, I'm confident.
1 JUDGE BONOMY: The reason I ask is that we would like to try and
2 complete the issue of the interviews of witnesses so that we when we
3 deliberate tomorrow will be able to make a decision finally on it.
4 Now, you have something more to say. How long is that going to
5 take?
6 MR. HANNIS: Less than 10 minutes.
7 JUDGE BONOMY: All right. We'll probably then interrupt the
8 evidence about 20 minutes or 15 minutes probably before the end of the
9 afternoon session so that anything that needs to be said about the motion
10 to bar interviews can be said and we can deal with it. So you have --
11 well, we will now be adjourning until 2.00 in view of what's happened, so
12 you will have from 2.00 until 3.15 as a period for evidence and from 3.15
13 to 3.30 to deal with the motion.
14 Court is now adjourned.
15 --- Luncheon recess taken at
16 --- On resuming at
17 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Fila, your next witness.
18 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Your Honour, the next witness is Dusan
19 Matkovic.
20 WITNESS: DUSAN MATKOVIC:
21 [Witness answered through interpreter]
22 [Witness testified via videolink]
23 JUDGE BONOMY: Good afternoon, Mr. Matkovic. Good afternoon,
24 Mr. Matkovic.
25 I heard no interpretation of that.
1 THE INTERPRETER: We can't hear him, I'm afraid.
2 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Matkovic, can you hear me?
3 Could you stand, please, while we administer the solemn
4 declaration to speak the truth.
5 Why are these things not resolved before we come into court?
6 Mr. Matkovic, can you hear me now?
7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour.
8 JUDGE BONOMY: Would you please make the solemn declaration to
9 speak the truth by reading aloud the document which you are now holding.
10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak
11 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. Please be seated.
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.
14 JUDGE BONOMY: You will now be examined by Mr. Fila on behalf of
15 Mr. Sainovic.
16 Mr. Fila.
17 Examination by Mr. Fila:
18 Q. [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Mr. Matkovic. Will you put your
19 headphones over your head, otherwise you will lose them. That's better
20 now. Thank you.
21 [No interpretation]
22 A. My name is Dusko Matkovic.
23 JUDGE BONOMY: Just a moment. There was no interpretation of that
24 question for some reason. Could you repeat the question, please,
25 Mr. Fila.
1 MR. HANNIS:
2 Q. Mr. Matkovic, could you please tell us your name, your
3 qualifications, and what your state party and economic positions you
4 performed in 1998 to 1999. Just briefly.
5 A. My name is Dusko Matkovic. By training I have a degree in
6 economy, economics. In 1998 and 1999, I was general manager of the
7 ironworks in Smederevo called Sartid, and I was vice-president of the
8 Socialist Party of Serbia in charge of economic issues, president of the
9 economic council of the Socialist Party of Serbia, and I was a deputy in
10 the Assembly of the
11 Q. Thank you. As we speak the same language, would you please make a
12 pause before answering my questions.
13 A. I will.
14 Q. In view of the positions you held, could you tell us what were the
15 political aims of
16 and Metohija?
17 A.
The political goals of
18 to ensure peace, stability, prosperity, economic development, and above
19 all the safety and security of all the citizens of Kosovo for them to be
20 able to live and work normally. Those were the main goals of the
21 Socialist Party of
22 Q. Was that an important issue in those days in the party and among
23 the state leadership?
24 A.
Yes. It was extremely
important. Not just in
25 say, but in
1 prominently featured in the world media as well and in the international
2 community.
3 Q. Thank you. Would you explain now how you happened to be in Kosovo
4 and Metohija in 1998.
5 A. In 1997 I went to Kosovo for the first time as the general manager
6 of Sartid because we had three plants in Kosovo, and I went touring those
7 factories, which was a part of my job, and in 1998 I went there as a
8 member of -- shall I call it a party working group for Kosovo. I think it
9 was on the 10th of June that we had a meeting of the Main Board at which,
10 upon the proposal of President Milosevic, the Main Board took the decision
11 and elected a three-member working group that was to assist in stabilising
12 and resolving the problems which existed in Kosovo. So I was in Kosovo as
13 a member of that working group of the Socialist Party of Serbia.
14 Q. Was this meant to show the interest the party had in the situation
15 in Kosovo and Metohija?
16 A.
The Socialist Party of Serbia was not ruling party in
17 the time and the most responsible in the political sense for events in
18 Kosovo, and it could not ignore such an issue but on the contrary gave it
19 a maximum of attention. And I remember at that meeting of the Main Board
20 this issue was discussed at length. Of course the president of the
21 Socialist Party of Serbia, Mr. Milosevic, chaired that meeting, and the
22 introductory address was made by Mr. Minic. There were some speakers in
23 the discussion, and it was pointed out that the number one issue, the most
24 important issue, was the question of Kosovo to which we needed to devote
25 the greatest attention, that all state bodies should take part in this,
1 and of course that the party should assist as well, that of course the
2 problem was so great that they couldn't deal with it themselves.
3 Q. Who were the members of the working group, and what was the role
4 of each of them?
5 A. The members of the working group, in addition to myself, were
6 Mr. Andjelkovic and Mr. Minic. And in view of the political involvement
7 and our overall political experience, Minic was mainly in charge of
8 political communication.
9 Q. I'm sorry, I'm interrupting you. Was somebody the leader of the
10 group and others the members of the work?
11 A. I couldn't really say that there was a leader of that group. We
12 simply worked as a team. Maybe Minic had more experience in politics than
13 the two of us, but we functioned as a team, and our agreement as to what
14 each of us would mostly focus on was that Minic should have political
15 communications with the Socialist Party of Serbia and other political
16 bodies in Kosovo, with the political institutions of the Albanians and so
17 on, whereas Mr. Andjelkovic was in charge of fieldwork, so that everyday
18 life should function properly, organisational issues, whereas I was
19 primarily concerned with the economic activities in Kosovo, seeking to
20 renew them, to keep them going, so that I was mainly in charge of economic
21 issues. And that is how we worked as a team.
22 Q.
Are you aware whether state bodies of
23 measures for each entity within the frameworks of its jurisdiction should
24 strengthen its presence in Kosovo?
25 A. Yes. Of course in view of the magnitude of the problem facing our
1 country at the time, state institutions were involved in assisting to deal
2
with the problem, and in that sense the government of
3
coordinator for those activities on behalf of the government of
4 and I think it was Mr. Andreja Milosavljevic, I think his name was, yes,
5 Milosavljevic, that was on behalf of the government of the republic. On
6 behalf of the federal government there was Mr. Sainovic, and I remember
7 that the Foreign Ministry also had its own outpost in Kosovo, the Foreign
8 Ministry, because of the large number of foreign representatives,
9 delegations that were coming to visit there.
10 Q. Among the persons you have mentioned and the groups that were sent
11 to Kosovo, and you have given the reasons, was there any form of
12 subordination? I'm referring to the SPS team, Minister Milosavljevic, the
13 Foreign Ministry outpost, and Sainovic. Were you in any kind of
14 subordinate relationships?
15 A. Absolutely not. No one was more important than anyone else. We
16 each of us did our part of the job. Each of us was tasked to work either
17 by the party or by state entities. So there was no subordination, and we
18 sought to achieve the greatest possible degree of coordination in order to
19 achieve our goal and that was to bring life back to normal, because at the
20 time it wasn't normal.
21 Q. Thank you. Are you aware of the reasons that the federal
22 government had in sending Mr. Sainovic to Kosovo?
23 A. I think that in my previous answers I have already given part of
24 the explanation. Not a single significant state institution could afford
25 not to be present and involved in dealing with the problem, and I know
1 that Mr. Sainovic, on behalf of the federal government, by decision of the
2 federal government, which means by decision of the prime minister in the
3 federal government, Mr. Minic [as interpreted], was dispatched to Kosovo
4 to deal with the problems within the purview of the federal government.
5 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Your Honour, there's an error in the
6 transcript. It says Mr. Minic, but it should be Mr. Bulatovic who sent
7 Sainovic to Kosovo.
8 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Fila.
9 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
10 Q. What was Sainovic in the federal government?
11 A. Mr. Sainovic was the vice-president of the federal government in
12 charge, primarily, of coordinating these activities in the field of
13 foreign affairs. Of course he had other duties as well, but the bulk of
14 his activity, to the best of my understanding and perception, and as
15 presented to the public, was that he was the vice-president in charge of
16 coordination and work in the area of foreign policy.
17 Q. Thank you. I'm now referring to your working group, Minic,
18 Andjelkovic, and yourself. When you arrived in Kosovo what was the
19 situation like there when you arrived, especially the economic situation
20 in the province?
21 A. I have to tell you that it is very important for me briefly to
22 tell you about a meeting that we first attended of the Provincial Board of
23 the Socialist Party of Serbia, and I have chosen this intentionally as the
24 first example I wish to tell you about, which means that the party we
25 belonged to and the provincial party was the main body of the Socialist
1
Party of
2 We had a meeting which was extremely well attended. I think it
3 was in June. I don't know the exact date. The 15th or 20th of June. It
4 was our first meeting down there. And this meeting evolved in a terrible
5 atmosphere. Tension was extremely high. Members of our own party told us
6 that we were inactive, that the state was inactive, that the situation in
7 Kosovo was tragic, that communications had been blocked, that life is not
8 normal, that children could not go to school, that they feared to go to
9 the shops, that the KLA had simply taken over control of the situation in
10 Kosovo, which was very shocking for us.
11 I remember that meeting well. It is still very clear in my mind.
12 Some very sharp words of criticism were addressed against the party and
13 the leadership, including President Milosevic. So I wanted to illustrate
14 how desperate the situation was.
15 And then we were able to see for ourselves, being unable to visit
16 a village between Pristina and Pec that was surrounded by the KLA, and the
17 people were in a blockade. They were running short of water and food, and
18 it was not possible to visit them. So our impressions were very bad. And
19 from other discussions and information we received, we realised that the
20 situation in Kosovo was, I would put it, dramatic. And of course we
21 informed the appropriate persons in
22 Q. Do you mean your party or others?
23 A. In the first place we had a conversation with the
24 Secretary-General of the party, Mrs. Gajevic, and after that a meeting
25 with Mr. Milosevic at which in a part of the talk we very frankly told
1 Mr. Milosevic how difficult the situation was, and he realised not the
2 seriousness but the drama of the situation which required measures to
3 stop, halt this trend, and then to take steps to overcome that situation,
4 to bring life back to normal in Kosovo, and to ensure normal life of both
5 Albanians, I underline Albanians, and Serbs and Romanies and all others
6 living in Kosovo.
7 JUDGE BONOMY: At the meeting of the -- at the meeting of the
8 Provincial Board were there representatives there who were not Serbs?
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, I can't recall now the
10 composition of the Provincial Board. I have to say that there were
11 between a hundred and 120 people there, and I think based on the
12 composition of the Socialist Party of
13 have been representatives of other communities, not only of the Serbian
14 community or of the Serb people in Kosovo.
15 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Fila.
16 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
17 Q. Mr. Matkovic, could you please very briefly explain to us what was
18 the activity of this working group that the SPS Main Board sent to Kosovo
19 in the summer of 1998? So what was -- what were you, Minic, Andjelkovic,
20 doing?
21 A. Well, we first wanted to get as well-informed about the situation
22 as possible, because being well-informed is the best basis is for whatever
23 needs to be done afterwards, and then we operated up the political
24 channels. We also coordinated activities with all the other relevant
25 factors who may have contributed to an improvement of the situation in
1 Kosovo and to achieve a peaceful settlement of the crisis. We took those
2 political steps. We talked to all the political agents. We talked to the
3 people. We tried to ensure them that we would take measures to stabilise
4 the situation. We visited many, many places in Kosovo, a lot of the
5 factories, some of who -- some of which were unable to operate at all.
6 There were attempts to disrupt normal production in some of the factories,
7 and we tried to achieve that those factories that were still operating to
8 operate normally.
9 I remember that there was factory in Vucitrn, a great factory. I
10 tried to get special security for this factory because there had been
11 several attempted raids in order to disrupt the production there, to
12 frighten the employees, and so on.
13 So our activities were primarily of political nature and of
14 coordinating nature. This is what politicians are supposed to do in such
15 a dire situation. And of course it was not the way that we would have
16 worked in
17 active. You had to work 15 hours a day. You have to call all of those
18 people who might be able to assist, including the military and the police.
19 And if you allow me, I would like to just tell you that
20 immediately after our departure to Kosovo, soon afterwards, there was this
21 terrorist raid, the terrorists from the Kosovo Liberation Army at the
22 Bilacevac mine in the immediate vicinity of Pristina. We found ourselves
23 in a completely unusual situation. And this crisis, I think, lasted 10 to
24 15 days. They held a certain number of employees hostage. I think at the
25 beginning there were dozens of workers who were held hostage. Production
1 was disrupted. Of course their objective, apart from the usual political
2 goals of the terrorists, their effort to frighten the public, they also
3 wanted to disrupt the supplies of fuel to the Obilic electrical plant, to
4 disrupt the supplies of power, and the people in the surrounding villages
5 were very frightened. We talked to them. We tried to it calm them down.
6 They set up night watches because they were really frightened.
7 Q. Okay. So you painted this picture for us. I want to ask you, at
8 the time while you were there in Kosovo and Metohija as a working group,
9 were there any meetings between various state bodies that were present
10 there in the field of their representatives?
11 A. You mean joint meetings of all the representatives of state organs
12 or bodies?
13 Q. Yes.
14 A. Well, to be quite precise, the main task of all those who were
15 present at Kosovo at the time was to do their job, but there was a certain
16 level of coordination. There had to be.
17 We as politicians felt the need to inform representatives of the
18 republican government, of the federal government, and the representatives
19 of the military and of the police about what we were able to see, we as
20 politicians, to keep them informed and to get some feedback that we needed
21 for our political activities. So we initiated certain contacts. For
22 instance, the first contacts were established in this Bilacevac crisis
23 where we called the representatives of the military and the police. We
24 asked them to give us information. We wanted them to -- we demanded that
25 they do something, because that's what the people demanded of us because
1 they were so upset. So we initiated a certain degree of information
2 exchange and a certain level of coordination in order for our efforts to
3 be better synchronised and to achieve better results on improving the
4 situation, because there were abductions, rapes, murders on a daily basis
5 in Kosovo both with Albanians and Serbs and others as victims.
6 Q. So if I understand you correctly, those joint meetings were held;
7 is that correct?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. In order to ensure the exchange of information.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. How often did those meetings take place? Was there a rule?
12 A. Well, at the beginning we spoke with people on the phone mostly.
13 Sometimes there would be a meeting but sporadically. We would meet with
14 the representatives of the military or of the police. I guess that is
15 what you're mainly interested in. But as the situation really
16 deteriorated and became even more difficult a need was felt for this kind
17 of daily communication. It was not on a daily basis but almost on a daily
18 basis that we met. The daily news were every evening at 9.00 -- at 8.30
19 at the Radio Television
20 the basis of daily events we would discuss the daily events, analyse them,
21 and then decide what should be done later on.
22 Q. Could you please repeat once again, because the transcript --
23 transcript doesn't really reflect that. You mentioned the daily news on
24 the RTS, and what happened then?
25 A. Well, we would meet every day or almost every day because the
1 situation was getting more and more dramatic and difficult, and the daily
2 evening news was a good way to do it. We would all watch the news
3 together at 7.30, and then we would exchange the information about what
4 happened that day in order to be able to do our job better the next day
5 because we would get -- we would be better informed.
6 Q. Thank you. That would be it. Mr. Matkovic, did you ever hear of
7 any meetings that you attended in 1998 being labelled Joint Command?
8 A. Well, I did hear of that term a couple of times. I can't give you
9 now the name of the person or persons from the military, from the Yugoslav
10 army, who used the term "Joint Command," since you're asking me about that
11 term, but that was not the term that we ourselves used.
12 And as regards the Joint Command, I can tell you that no such
13 thing existed in Kosovo the way I saw it from the point of view of
14 political activities, and in particular not as regards those coordination
15 meetings, briefings where we exchanged our opinions, because for something
16 to have elements of a command or a Joint Command there has to be a
17 document establishing it. There has to be a commander. There have to be
18 certain rules that people should abide by. So I reject the possibility
19 that there was a Joint Command, that I was present, or that any people
20 from the Socialist Party of Serbia were in who were there with me.
21 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Line 15 contains something that the
22 witness didn't say. The witness actually said exactly the opposite
23 thing. Perhaps I should ask the witness or perhaps Your Honour you could
24 ask the witness, because that's not what he said. I don't want to lead
25 the witness.
1 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Matkovic, in referring to the Joint Command
2 having been used as an expression by members of the military, did you
3 indicate had who other -- who apart from the military had also used that
4 term "Joint Command"?
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I said that this term was not used
6 but that it was mentioned three or four times in my hearing, but it was
7 not used with any continuity. I think I heard it from somebody from the
8 military, to be quite specific. And later on I said that such a Joint
9 Command, to my knowledge, did not exist, and in particular that we did
10 not -- that we did not participate in it, but there was no such formal
11 body.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: Did you or your colleagues use the
13 expression "Joint Command"?
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No.
15 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
16 Mr. Fila.
17 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
18 Q. Mr. Matkovic, those meetings that you talked about that you used
19 in order to keep each other informed, I want to know until what time would
20 they be held? Until what month?
21 A. Well, we started seeing each other on a more intensive basis in
22 July because the situation demanded this level of coordination,
23 information, and I think that in July and August those meetings were held
24 on an almost daily basis, so very often. In September it tapered off. I
25 think we may have met maybe two or three times a week. So it was no
1 longer that intense, because the KLA's activities substantially decreased
2 because, of course, the military and police were quite successful in
3 fighting terrorism and the Kosovo Liberation Army. So we met less
4 frequently. After September there were no such meetings. I came to
5 Kosovo -- I stopped coming to Kosovo in September. As I said, I was
6 coming there. I was not there constantly, but after September there were
7 no such meetings as far as I know.
8 Q. What can you tell us about the role of Nikola Sainovic in Kosovo
9 in the summer of 1998 and up to the signing of the agreement with
10 Holbrooke and the arrival of the Kosovo Verification Mission?
11 A. Well, Mr. Sainovic's role, to the extent that we were in contact
12 and able to talk, work together and so on, was quite important in the
13 sense that he was there as the representative of the federal government,
14 and he communicated with foreign officials, people from abroad and so on,
15 the missions that came or individuals that came from abroad. I think that
16 he played a very significant role in the sense of presenting to the
17 foreign delegations the truth of what was happening in Kosovo. And the
18 truth was that every effort was made to fight terrorism inside the borders
19 of a state using all the legitimate means at the disposal of the state and
20 to establish normal life in Kosovo.
21 So in this initial stage, as I would call it, as of the
22 anti-terrorist activities that were very intense in July and August, I
23 think that Mr. Sainovic kept the world informed, kept the foreign
24 delegations informed about all that, and that he also kept the federal
25 government informed about the developments in the situation. So this was
1 a very important role that he played as an experienced state official and
2 political worker. He helped with his advice, his approach aimed at
3 achieving the change of the situation in Kosovo as soon as possible to
4 normalise the situation, which was the goal that we all shared.
5 So in this initial stage of this anti-terrorist activity, which
6 was indeed the most acute, most difficult stage, after that we had -- it
7 was cooperation with the Kosovo Verification Mission, the OSCE. That was
8 his main role.
9 Q. Did he also negotiate with Ambassador Hill? Do you recall that?
10 A.
As far as I can remember, Mr. Hill was the
11
12 times and that he talked with Mr. Sainovic in the Executive Council
13 premises, which is where we had our own offices, so to speak. In fact,
14 what we had was just a large office where we met.
15 Q. Do you know --
16 A. Well, I remember that there were those discussions, but we were
17 not informed about the details.
18 Q. Do you know anything about Mr. Sainovic's activities after the war
19 started regarding Kosovo and Metohija?
20 A. Well, I gave you the essence of Mr. Sainovic's activities
21 already. That was to represent the interest --
22 Q. No, you didn't understand me. I'm asking you about his activities
23 in Kosovo and Metohija after the war started. There were no foreigners
24 there anymore. Did he conduct any negotiations?
25 A. Well, what do you mean at the start of the war, 1999?
1 Q. Yes, 1999. After the airstrikes began.
2 A. I was less involved in those events. Of course I was kept abreast
3 as the vice-president of the party and through the media.
4 Mr. Sainovic was the president of the federal board established by
5 the federal government for cooperation with the Kosovo Verification
6
7 level were represented, all the authorities. Mr. Sainovic led that. He
8 was
in charge of the communication there. We
-- everybody in
9 that --
10 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Matkovic, could you deal with the question.
11 You've actually been asked twice now. What did Mr. Sainovic do after the
12 war started?
13 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]
14 Q. The Kosovo Verification Commission had withdrawn. What did Nikola
15 Sainovic do in Kosovo and Metohija in the course of 1999, if you remember,
16 after NATO bombing began?
17 A. I think that he wasn't present to such an extent down there
18 according to my own recollection. And I repeat, he was in charge of
19 cooperation with foreign observers.
20 Q. Have you heard of the name Ibrahim Rugova? Do you remember
21 anything in connection with him?
22 A.
Of course. All of us in
23 with Ibrahim Rugova in Pristina and
24 was well-remembered in
25 Mr. Rugova as the Albanian leader and as a moderate politician, as I would
1 describe him, within the Albanian political establishment to find a
2 peaceful solution to the conflict in Kosovo. And they met several times
3 and this was reported on television. But this is what was most visible,
4 but I think his continuous activities had to do with his contacts with
5 foreign representatives, the OSCE, as part of this federal committee.
6 Q. Could you tell us something about the political positions of
7 Sainovic in connection with Kosovo and Metohija, if you know.
8 A. Sainovic's political views are very familiar to me, not only with
9 respect to Kosovo but broader. He is a person who was originally a
10 manager, a businessman. He always thought that it was in the benefit of
11 the country to develop the economy because he came from the large factory
12 in Bor, and he felt that politics was an instrument to achieve those aims
13 by peaceful means through cooperation in Kosovo with the Albanians who
14 were in the majority in Kosovo, and it was very important for them to be
15 cooperative for a solution to be found. And that was what he advocated,
16 and that is what he said loud and clear at all meetings. He said that in
17 public, when talking to representatives of foreign countries and so on.
18 Q. Thank you. My last question for you: Could you tell us something
19 about the human characteristics of Nikola Sainovic and his characteristics
20 as a -- a worker?
21 A.
You see, the largest companies in
22 processing are Bor, where he was employed, and Sartid, where I was
23 employed, and I know that as a worker, and I was told about this by his
24 associates who worked with him for years, he was an extremely hard-working
25 man who would work 12 to 15 hours a day. He had a very good reputation in
1 the economy and also in politics. And if I have to put it in a nutshell,
2 it -- he was an extremely intelligent, well-educated, hard-working man
3 with political talent who worked with a great deal of enthusiasm, with
4 greater or lesser success as all of us, but he invested his all in
5
achieving the aims of
6 Q. Thank you, Mr. Matkovic. That brings to an end my questions. You
7 will now be questioned by the Prosecution.
8 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I have no further questions for this
9 witness, Your Honour.
10 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Fila.
11 Does any Defence counsel wish to ask any questions? Thank you.
12 Mr. Hannis.
13 Mr. Matkovic, you will now be cross-examined by the Prosecutor,
14 Mr. Hannis.
15 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honours.
16 Cross-examination by Hannis:
17 Q. Mr. Matkovic, I'd like to begin by showing you Exhibit P 1468. If
18 the Court Registry officer will help you with that. The first page I want
19 to show you in the B/C/S is ERN K0228420. I'll refer to the last four
20 digits from now on for -- for the Court Registry officer. It's about page
21 9 I think of the B/C/S.
22 Mr. Matkovic, you referred to the working group, the SPS working
23 group that you were a part of, which I take it you were referring to
24 yourself, Mr. Minic, and Mr. Andjelkovic. I'm going to be talking about
25 those meetings that the three of you had
with Mr. Sainovic, General
1
Pavkovic, General Lukic and others, and I'm going to refer to those as
2 Joint Command meetings because that's how they're referred to by other
3 people and how they're referred to in this document.
4 The first one I want to ask you about is a meeting on 25 July
5 1998. And I don't know if you can see it there, I know you had an eye
6 injury, but in the middle of the page there's a reference to you,
7 Mr. Matkovic. Can you see that there on the document?
8 A. I do, but may I ask you something first, please?
9 Q. Well, you can ask me. What's the question?
10 A. My question is that it will be hard for us to understand one
11 another if you use the term "Joint Command," which is a term I am not
12 familiar with, and according to the best of my knowledge it didn't exist.
13 Q. Well, sir --
14 A. Could we use another term, joint coordination meeting or
15 something? That would improve our understanding.
16 Q. If you look at the top of the page it says meeting of the Joint
17 Command for Kosovo and Metohija. So that's the term I'm going to use.
18 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Matkovic, it will not help the Court if there
19 is reference to some fictional -- or hypothetical, rather, grouping for
20 this purpose. You should follow -- we understand your position that there
21 wasn't a Joint Command, but Mr. Hannis is referring to documents which do
22 indicate otherwise, and he is entitled to question you on that basis, but
23 your position is clear.
24 Mr. Hannis.
25 MR. IVETIC: Your Honour, one thing we do have to clear up --
1 maybe this could be the confusion with the witness. These documents in
2 Serbian themselves do not say joint command. They say meetings of the ZK
3 for KiM. So I don't know -- it's just the cover page that was provided by
4 the -- I guess the entity -- I don't know if it's the Prosecution or the
5 entity that produced the document. The cover page of this group exhibit
6 says meetings of the Joint Command for KiM but the documents themselves,
7 the notes say ZK, so I don't if that's the confusion that's been --
8 JUDGE BONOMY: And can you help me with what ZK might mean?
9 MR. IVETIC: It might mean -- it might mean Joint Command in
10 Serbian or it might mean something else. I don't know.
11 JUDGE BONOMY: Do you have another suggestion?
12 MR. IVETIC: No, I don't. I'm just bringing that to your
13 attention.
14 JUDGE BONOMY: Very well. Thank you. And please proceed,
15 Mr. Hannis on the basis that you've indicated.
16 MR. HANNIS: Well, Your Honour, then maybe it will help if we go
17 to page 161 in the English which is page 1 -- I believe 147 of the B/C/S
18 which is K0228558. Very near the end. And actually, I have to back up
19 two pages, because it's actually the end of the meeting the day before.
20 So page 145 of the B/C/S, which is 8556.
21 Q. And I'm looking near the middle of the page -- well, no. Let's go
22 to the bottom paragraph of the page. There's a reference to
23 Mr. Andjelkovic. Do you see that, Mr. Matkovic?
24 A. Yes, I do.
25 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... Second paragraph. Yes, on
1 855 of 6, the B/C/S, the bottom of the page you'll see a reference
2 Minister Andjelkovic.
3 Do you have that in front of you, sir?
4 A. Yes, I do.
5 Q. Okay. You told us before the only persons you heard mentioning
6 Joint Command in these meetings were the military; is that right?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Mr. Andjelkovic says here: "Nobody is authorised to take away our
9 documents. All the documents are to be kept on the Joint Command's
10 premises."
11 Do you recall him saying that at that meeting which was on the
12 26th of October, 1998?
13 A. No, I don't recall that, and I wish to tell you that at the
14 meetings that we had minutes were never kept. There was no official
15 body. No one kept minutes, nor were minutes adopted. So that for a
16 serious discussion, I have to tell you that minutes were not kept. There
17 may have been someone's personal notes at those meetings, but there was
18 never an official record. Therefore, what is written here is of secondary
19 importance, because I never received an official report. It was never
20 compiled. And I think, Mr. Prosecutor, this is something you should bear
21 in mind.
22 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, the minute, the part of it that I have
23 in front of me says "Not present, Minister Andjelkovic."
24 MR. HANNIS: Yes, that's for the next meeting that follows on the
25 28th of October.
1 JUDGE BONOMY: I'm sorry. Yes, it's further up the page. Yes. I
2 thought you referred to this one as the 28th.
3 MR. HANNIS: No, I'm sorry. This was the 26th, Your Honour. You
4 have to go back about three pages to see where this meeting began.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
6 MR. HANNIS: 158 of the English, 26th of October and the persons
7 listed as absent for that date were Generals Stevanovic and Mr. Minic.
8 Q. So, Mr. Matkovic, are you telling us you don't remember
9 Mr. Andjelkovic referring to the Joint Command in that meeting when he was
10 talking about taking care of your documents?
11 A. Of course I don't remember, and I repeat that there were no
12 minutes kept of those information meetings. There are no official minutes
13 of those meetings.
14 Q. Okay. Well, then, maybe we should go to somebody more official
15 for you. Could we go to P2166, please.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Matkovic, apart from the point that's just been
17 put to you by Mr. Hannis, do the terms of that document give a fair
18 picture of the personnel who would get together to keep each other
19 informed about matters in Kosovo?
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I believe that this
21 paper that I have just seen is not an official document, and I wouldn't
22 like to comment on it, but if you wish.
23 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. -- Mr. Matkovic, please. Let us ask the
24 questions about the document, because we're anxious to find out whether
25 this accurately reflects what was happening.
1 Now, this document exists. Somebody has written it. Whether it's
2 an authentic record or not, we will have to determine ultimately once
3 we've heard all the evidence, and we want you to help us on that rather
4 than to keep suggesting that we're doing the wrong thing.
5 So I'd like to know whether when you look at the minute, as it's
6 called, of the 26th of October it indicates the personnel that you were
7 meeting with regularly and looks as though it contains information about
8 the subjects that you were discussing regularly.
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It -- in part it may be trustworthy,
10 but the question is who wrote it. And I repeat and I'll end with this
11 minute, this is not an official document. We never had minutes from those
12 meetings.
13 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Matkovic, are you prepared to help us or are
14 you not prepared to help us? It's quite impertinent in court when you're
15 told not -- not yourself to deal with the questions that are the ones for
16 the Judges, to continue to do that. So please concentrate on what I'm
17 asking you.
18 Does this document contain details of the persons that you were
19 regularly meeting with and the sorts of subjects that you were discussing
20 with them?
21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's quite possible that it does
22 contain a list of participants and some of the issues discussed there, but
23 this is probably from the standpoint of one individual. It was probably
24 written by one individual. And in such a high level institution as this
25 Tribunal I cannot seriously discuss it because it is not an official
1 document, as we didn't have such official minutes.
2 And I really do, with all due respect for the Court and you, Your
3 Honour, I want to assist in providing answers to all questions that you
4 put to me.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Matkovic, if you continue in this vein I will
6 have to deal with the matter more formally. It's not for you to question
7 the conduct of the Bench in asking questions. Now that's the third time
8 I've warned you that questioning this document is a matter for us and not
9 you, once you've at least had the opportunity to make the point that you
10 don't think it is an official document and it doesn't look an official
11 document. So please simply confine yourself now to answering the specific
12 questions put to you.
13 Mr. Hannis.
14 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour. I was going to go to 2166
15 but in light of that, let me go to P2913.
16 Q. Mr. Matkovic this is your statement to the ICTY from February
17 2003. And I want to direct you to paragraph 49. I hope that's been
18 numbered on the hard copy we sent you.
19 A. What page is that?
20 Q. It's page 10 in my English. Let me see the B/C/S. Page 10 of the
21 B/C/S, the last paragraph.
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. So today was not the first time you saw those minutes that I call
24 minutes of Joint Command meetings. You saw this document before when you
25 were interviewed in 2003, didn't you?
1 A. Yes. Mr. Curtic [sic] showed me that document and I explained to
2 him what I had. Mr. Curtis. I'm sorry.
3 Q. Yes. And we have that there, and you said, "I think only Djakovic
4 could have taken these notes," referring to Colonel Djakovic; correct?
5 A. Yes, an associate of General Pavkovic's who occasionally attended
6 those meetings.
7 Q. Occasionally or pretty much all the time?
8 A. I couldn't say all the time, but I think he was present very often
9 together with General Pavkovic.
10 Q. The last sentence in that paragraph is translated in English
11 as: "Everybody took some notes at the meeting. That is certain." Is
12 that correct? Is that what you said?
13 A. Well, you see, may I just say that this is my statement and that
14 we had a lengthy interview and this is a part of that interview, that
15 certain clarifications need to be made because we went into greater
16 detail, but the gist is there in this statement.
17 Q. So did --
18 A. But when I said everyone took notes, very rarely. I only noted
19 down what I considered important. For example, the situation in certain
20 regions and what was happening with respect to certain factories, whether
21 it was critical, whether the factories could continue working or not.
22 When I say "notes," I'm saying that each took note of what they
23 thought was important. Of course serious professionals in the army and in
24 the police have a habit of taking notes, whereas we as politicians noted
25 down what we considered to be of importance regarding the security
1 situation. For instance, could we go to Mitrovica the next day, whether
2 the road was open, and things like that.
3 Q. We now go to Exhibit P2166. And if you could take a look at the
4
first page of that document. This
is dated
5 described as "Minutes of the meeting of the operations interdepartmental
6 staff for the suppression of terrorism in Kosovo and Metohija held in the
7
8 Have you ever seen this document before?
9 A. Well, I think I have seen this document before. I saw it a number
10 of years ago at the time when I spoke with Mr. Curtis.
11 Q. And you were at this meeting, weren't you?
12 A. Well, it says here that I was present. That was the 29th of
13 October. If it says here that I was there, it means that I was. I
14 assume.
15 Q. Okay. Looking at the cover of this document and looking at the
16 last page, are you more satisfied with the quality of this document as
17 being official?
18 A. I can only assume now that this is an official document, but I
19 always have certain reservations. I am sure that you understand me. When
20 one is dealing with various documents, minutes, records and so on, it is
21 always possible that a document may not be authentic, but we have to start
22 from the assumption that it is.
23 Q. Well, do you personally recall being at this meeting?
24 A. Well, right now it is difficult for me to recall exactly, but I
25 suppose I was at this meeting.
1 Q. All right. On the second paragraph of that page under the list of
2 all the people who attended it says that Mr. Milosevic opened the session
3 and told people what was going to happen, and he mentioned that General
4 Pavkovic would then present the proposals of the Joint Command, whereupon
5 the participants would join in the discussion.
6 So here's a non-military person, Mr. Milosevic, using the
7 term "Joint Command" in your presence at a meeting. Does that refresh
8 your memory about whether you ever heard the term from anyone else other
9 than a military person?
10 A. Well, I have to say again that it's possible that this term was
11 used in other places, but it was not an official term. It was not an
12 official body. Nobody ever told me about that, and I have no knowledge of
13 the existence of the Joint Command, sir.
14 Q. So you're at this meeting. President Milosevic uses the term, and
15 you're still telling us that there was no such body?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Okay. Look at the next paragraph.
18 A. I state with full responsibility that there was no such body, and
19 I remember actually now when I look at those minutes there were several
20 other meetings of this kind, I think three, at this level at President
21 Milosevic's place.
22 Q. All right. Look at the next paragraph at the bottom of page 1.
23 It says: "Speaking on behalf of the Joint Command for KiM," K-i-M, Kosovo
24 and Metohija, "General Pavkovic reminded the members of the operations
25 staff that the plan for suppressing terrorism in KiM had been carried out
1 in five stages."
2 So here's another reference and it says that General Pavkovic is
3 speaking on behalf of the Joint Command.
4 Still your position there was no such body?
5 A. The only thing I can say is that Mr. Pavkovic always spoke on
6 behalf of the military as a soldier, as a professional, an excellent
7 professional, and he could not speak on behalf of any kind of Joint
8 Command. That's what I'm saying. I don't know why this term "Joint
9 Command" is here in this paper. I don't remember this document. But for
10 Mr. Pavkovic to be addressing us on behalf of the Joint Command, that's --
11 that doesn't reflect the actual situation. General Pavkovic always
12 addressed us on behalf of the military of the Pristina Corps. He had his
13 own chain of command.
14 Mr. Prosecutor, let me just tell you one thing. It just made no
15 sense for any politician to be able to -- to talk about military or police
16 issues to such excellent professionals in the sphere of military and
17 police such as General Lukic, Pavkovic and so on. That would be
18 completely nonsensical. And then now it would take us a lot more time to
19 actually find out why this term Joint Command is used here.
20 Q. Sir, would you go to page 8099 of your document.
21 This is at the bottom of page 9 in the English version, Your
22 Honours.
23 Do you have that, Mr. Matkovic?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And at the very top of your page it says: "In conclusion, Milomir
1 Minic proposed the following," and Mr. Minic was part of your working
2 group; right?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And number one he says: "The operations staff," which is this
5 group that's meeting on the 29th of October, "The operations staff should
6 provide an assessment of how successfully the Joint Command for Kosovo and
7 Metohija has fulfilled the authorisations conferred upon it." Are you
8 still saying there was no Joint Command?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. You're under oath, sir. Are you still insisting there was no
11 Joint Command?
12 A. I insist that the Joint Command did not exist. Nobody ever told
13 me about the existence of the Joint Command. Nobody notified me
14 officially. There were no elements of the Joint Command. And I'm really
15 saying this with full respect and out of a desire to assist you and with
16 full respect both for the Prosecution and for the Trial Chamber.
17 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Fila?
18 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I think that the witness is being
19 misled in this manner because he said on a number of occasions that the
20 meetings which he attended in Pristina were not meetings of the Joint
21 Command. That's what he's saying, that's what he's said a number of
22 times. I don't know how many times we have to ask him that. So it's
23 simply --
24 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Fila, you can review that on re-examination,
25 and it's a perfectly legitimate area for you to explore at that stage.
1 Mr. Hannis.
2 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
3 Q. Can we go to page 8101 of the B/C/S. This is page 12 of the
4 English. Middle of the English page. Mr. Matkovic, for you it's the
5 second paragraph up from the bottom. And it says: "The president of the
6
7 submitted by the members of the Joint Command for Kosovo and Metohija
8 should be accepted."
9 You were there at this meeting where he said that. He's talking
10 about the reports submitted by the members of the Joint Command. If there
11 are members, there must have been a Joint Command. Isn't that true?
12 A. Well, I don't remember this. It's been a long time ago. And out
13 of respect for you, I have to say again what I think. It should be
14 examined how this term "Joint Command" could get into this record, the
15 minutes, because the Joint Command did not exist. The only thing that
16 existed was the joint activity in Kosovo, and such joint activity would
17 exist in any other country fighting terrorism in its own territory.
18 Now, I personally would like to assist you to ascertain how this
19 term came to be used here, because I think that Mr. Milutinovic, because
20 he was -- he had very little involvement in the situation, I doubt that he
21 could have used this term at all.
22 Q. Okay. Fair point. Let's go to somebody who had some involvement
23 with the group. Can we --
24 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, will you find a suitable point at which
25 to interrupt this, assuming that your cross-examination's extending into
1 tomorrow.
2 MR. HANNIS: It will go on a little longer, Your Honour. I have
3 one more point I want to make, I think it will be a good one to end with.
4 JUDGE BONOMY: That's fine.
5 MR. HANNIS:
6 Q. If we can go to page 8102 and immediately following it, 8103
7 because it carries over from the bottom of the page for you, Mr. Matkovic,
8 and in the English, Your Honours, it's page 13 at the middle of the page.
9 Let's see what Mr. Sainovic said about the Joint Command at this meeting
10 you were at. Do you see the bottom of page 8102, the bottom two lines,
11 and if you'll keep on reading to the next page to follow with me: "Deputy
12 prime minister Sainovic agreed with the opinion that the viability of the
13 continued activity of the Joint Command for Kosovo and Metohija in its
14 present composition should be reevaluated." He said that "The number of
15 people thus engaged should be reduced and better prepare them for the more
16 effective action in new conditions."
17 Now, Mr. Sainovic was involved and it seems here he's clearly
18 talking about a body that does exist and has existed and he proposes that
19 it continue to exist, perhaps with fewer people. Are you still telling us
20 under oath that there was no Joint Command for Kosovo and Metohija? You
21 may not like the name, but it existed, didn't it?
22 A. Mr. Prosecutor, you may have more information than I do. You may
23 be better informed. Perhaps there was a coordination between the military
24 and the police and you may be aware of some terms, but the term "Joint
25 Command," the body that was the Joint Command, that would involve the
1 military, the police, the state security, the politicians from a single
2 party, and the representative of the federal government, that did not
3 exist definitely. I'm trying to help you, and I am now speaking under
4 oath.
5 Now, as to how this term came to be used in those minutes, this
6 really should be ascertained in some way.
7 Q. Mr. Matkovic, I don't have any more information than you. You
8 just -- I don't have any more information than you. You just said it. A
9 body that had the military and the police, the state security, and the
10 politicians and a representative of the federal government. That's you
11 guys meeting in Pristina. That's General Lukic and General Pavkovic and
12 Mr. Gajic from state security and that's you three guys from the working
13 group for the SPS and that's Mr. Sainovic. That's the Joint Command.
14 Isn't it?
15 A. No. That's a -- that's not a body. That's not an organised
16 body. That's not the Joint Command. That was a consultative working
17 meeting where we exchanged information, sir.
18 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I think that would be a good place for
19 me to stop.
20 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Matkovic, could you read for us the sentence
21 that Mr. Hannis read which was Mr. Sainovic speaking.
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Of course. Of course, Your Honour.
23 Vice-president Sainovic agreed with the opinion that the opportune -- that
24 the viability of the continued activity of the Joint Command for Kosovo
25 and Metohija in its present composition should be reevaluated. He said
1 the number of people thus engaged should be reduced and they should be
2 better prepared for the more effective action in new conditions. He said
3 that the number of people thus engaged should be reduced and so on.
4 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you very much.
5 [Trial Chamber confers]
6 JUDGE BONOMY: Any indication of how much longer, Mr. Hannis?
7 MR. HANNIS: Well, Your Honour, I have to reveal a secret. I'm
8
flying to the
9 it. I talked to Mr. Stamp about finishing for me if I didn't get done
10 before close of business today but this is a family matter I had scheduled
11 for some time and I --
12 JUDGE BONOMY: How long would it take you if you were to finish
13 it?
14 MR. HANNIS: Well, Your Honour, in 30 minutes perhaps. Mr. Stamp
15 might be shorter. I don't know.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: It's not going to be possible to continue, I'm
17 afraid, so Mr. Stamp will have to complete the cross-examination.
18 Mr. Matkovic, we cannot continue further this afternoon. We are
19 constrained so far as time is concerned, and we will have to continue your
20 evidence tomorrow. That will be at 2.15 tomorrow afternoon. So you need
21 to be back where you are ready to continue giving evidence at 2.15
22 tomorrow. You are now free to leave the room where you've been giving
23 evidence.
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you. Yes, it will be my
25 pleasure.
1 [The witness stands down]
2 JUDGE BONOMY: Returning then, Mr. Hannis, to the question of the
3 interviewing of witnesses. What further submissions do you have to make?
4 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, before I do that can I clear up one
5 matter of evidence? This morning we had marked Exhibit P2922 MFI. We
6 have since received the translation and put it in e-court. So can it be
7 indicated to reflect that new status.
8 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes. Thank you.
9 MR. HANNIS: Thank you. What I want to say with regard to the
10 interviews, Your Honour, because I think I maybe was missing your question
11 to me about if this was how I intended to conduct interviews if we were
12 going to interview Defence witnesses through the remainder of the case.
13 When I first proposed this, Your Honour, this was before the trial
14 had started and I had seen the list of all the witnesses - I think there
15 were 109 for Mr. Lukic and 50 some for Mr. Lazarevic, et cetera. My
16 notion was for purposes of our planning and allocating resources was just
17 to try to contact some of these people, confirm whether they indeed were
18 planning on coming because I know with our own witnesses sometimes
19 people -- their name might have been on a list but there was some doubt
20 about whether they were really going to come.
21 Also some of the 65 ter summaries, some are quite extensive and
22 detailed but some are very short, four or five lines say that, you know,
23 so-and-so was a member of the MUP or the VJ and will talk about events in
24 Kosovo in 1999. That's an oversimplification. But my notion was to try
25 and contact them and say what part of
Kosovo you were in or what brigade
1
were you in and what are you going to talk about, which would help us
2 evaluate about whether -- how many resources to allocate or whether that
3 was a witness whose preparation could be put further off down the line.
4 I was not planning to do these extensive suspect type interviews
5 that were done what the witness indicated here and if you were to ask me
6 today if I still have any present intention of interviewing anybody,
7 frankly no. Some of the ones that we're most interested in we've already
8 done and as I don't have time and resources to do it, and further, it's
9 actually more fun to do it here in the courtroom where I can cross-examine
10 them under oath than to go out to their place and have cigarettes and
11 coffee and maybe be stonewalled, so that's as a practical matter where we
12 are. So I don't know if that helps you in --
13 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, are you saying that your present intention is
14 to interview none of the remaining defence witnesses?
15 MR. HANNIS: That's correct.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: And that if you change your position you will
17 notify the Defence so that the matter can be raised with us.
18 MR. HANNIS: Yes. Yes.
19 MR. IVETIC: Well, Your Honour that doesn't necessarily help our
20 situation. The one remaining matter that I wanted to bring to the Court's
21 attention is that the individual that is on our witness list that was
22 interviewed, Mr. Blagoje Pesic, has now refused to cooperate with us and
23 has stopped returning our phone calls. Now, he's the only one that I have
24 confirmed information has now reneged on his agreement to testify for us
25 but you know we have had about a dozen or so others that have been
1 cancelling appointments and being somewhat hard to get in the recent weeks
2 so I'm afraid that -- I -- well, I'm not going to say anything more than
3 that. I'm just bringing to the Court's attention what I can confirm and
4
vouch for based upon my communications was our staff in
5 been --
6 JUDGE BONOMY: You know of course that you have remedies available
7 to you and we leave it to you to decide what action to take. You can
8 either enlist the assistance of the Prosecution, which you may not wish to
9 do. You can apply to us for a subpoena and there maybe other courses of
10 action aware of that you could take on an informal basis to arrange their
11 attendance.
12 MR. HANNIS: One matter that related to this, Your Honour, was we
13 had made an informal request of the Defence if they would be willing to
14 give us the fathers' names and witnesses' date of birth. That was for the
15 purposes of helping us with our electronic searches for the witnesses.
16 Many of them have common names and sometimes we're not sure if we had the
17 right Mijatovic when we're doing the search. We have gotten that
18 information from I think four of the six Defence teams, but from two
19 others we haven't.
20 JUDGE BONOMY: Is there any particular reason why that sort of
21 cooperation might not be given? Is it felt that's inappropriate in some
22 way? Bearing in mind what's now been said, that it's not intended to
23 carry out interviews. Well, since there's no one to -- sorry, Mr. Ivetic.
24 MR. IVETIC: Only insofar as for the 100-odd witness we had, we
25 may not have that information for all of them so --
1 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, but apart from that, if that's the case, then
2 all I can say is you hear what Mr. Hannis says and asks and you've all
3 indicated I think individually at various stages that he's been a
4 cooperative guy, so you will no doubt decide the extent to which it is
5 appropriate for you, bearing in mind your different positions to cooperate
6 with his request.
7 [Trial Chamber confers]
8 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic, the best way of dealing with this I
9 think would be to withdraw the motion, knowing that you're going to be
10 told if it's intended to do this and you would have an opportunity of
11 immediately filing it again. Do you see any difficulty with that?
12 MR. IVETIC: I don't, as long as we reserve the right to reassert
13 it if it becomes an issue again.
14 JUDGE BONOMY: Precisely.
15 MR. IVETIC: Yeah. Thank you.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, that's one issue resolved.
17 Oh, Mr. Ackerman.
18 MR. ACKERMAN: Can I have three minutes of complaint time?
19 JUDGE BONOMY: Please continue quickly.
20 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, it's a rule that when a witness takes
21 the stand the other parties should notify you of the exhibits and
22 documents that are going to be used during cross-examination. I think
23 during the Prosecution's case we were quite diligent in -- with regard to
24 that. I don't think we could have gotten by with sending them a document
25 saying "any of the exhibits on your 65 ter exhibit list," although that's
1 what they're doing with us, and I don't think that's in the spirit of the
2 rule. They need to tell us exactly which documents they intend to use,
3 not just any of the exhibits on your 65 ter exhibit list. That's just not
4 giving us any information. That requires us to look at every exhibit on
5 their list, I suppose. More than that, it's not -- it tends to be a
6 little bit mendacious, because I know they don't intend to use all the
7 exhibits on our 65 ter list when they say this. So I they should be
8 requested to be a great deal more specific with the exhibits they're going
9 to use.
10 JUDGE BONOMY: Do you want to react to that, Mr. Hannis?
11 MR. HANNIS: Well, as I recall - I have to check - but it seems to
12 me during our part of the trial there were some times we got notifications
13 that the Defence might use any exhibits that were on our list.
14 Okay. I think we were referring to any exhibits that were on
15 Mr. Sainovic's witness list, not all six of the accused.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: I think the complaint is still the same
17 essentially, that you should be able to be more specific once the witness
18 is on the stand.
19 [Prosecution counsel confer]
20 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, we -- yeah, we provide a list of the
21 specific exhibits that we're going to use, usually P exhibits and other
22 numbers, but for their witness we were referring to 2D exhibits. Because
23 sometimes they may send us a list of 50 exhibits they're going to use with
24 the witness and then they don't use all of them. I don't want to have to
25 send them a list of their 50 and say I may use any or all of your 50 if
1 you don't use them. Do you follow?
2 JUDGE BONOMY: I think I do, but what is being asked of you is to
3 identify the ones you're particularly concerned about and that you know
4 more or less for sure that you're going to be referring to.
5 MR. HANNIS: Okay. But if they refer to them, then I don't need
6 to. I mean, if they use it with the witness then I don't need to and I
7 don't know ones which they may end up not using.
8 JUDGE BONOMY: I understand that, but --
9 MR. HANNIS: Okay.
10 JUDGE BONOMY: -- if their list for the witness is unlikely to
11 include all the exhibits on their -- I see. Your notice is simply to say
12 to them you will refer to the ones they have notified you of for the
13 particular witness.
14 MR. HANNIS: Yes.
15 JUDGE BONOMY: Is that your understanding of this Mr. Ackerman?
16 MR. HANNIS: I'm sorry.
17 MR. ACKERMAN: That's not what it said, Judge.
18 MR. HANNIS: I'm not stating that correctly.
19 JUDGE BONOMY: You are not stating.
20 MR. ACKERMAN: Okay.
21 JUDGE BONOMY: Okay.
22 MR. ACKERMAN: That's not what it says.
23 MR. HANNIS: Well, then we'll pay some attention to trying to
24 narrowing it down.
25 JUDGE BONOMY: What's being suggested is that you're saying that
1 you might refer to any one on the 65 ter list that was presented before
2 the Defence case began rather than confining it even to the ones that the
3 Defence are going to refer to in the course of the --
4 MR. HANNIS: Yeah.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: -- particular witness.
6 MR. HANNIS: Yeah.
7 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, the question is can you improve on that?
8 MR. HANNIS: Yeah. I think we can improve on that.
9 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, perhaps tomorrow someone in your absence will
10 have a suggestion or an indication for us of how this might be dealt with.
11 MR. HANNIS: Okay. I'll speak with Mr. Stamp. Thank you.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: And would you also speak with Mr. Ackerman, because
13 I think that that might amplify your understanding of the problem.
14 MR. HANNIS: Okay.
15 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, just for the record, Your Honour, the way we
16 dealt with it was we listed every exhibit by exhibit number when we were
17 going to use it with one of their witnesses, and when we failed to do
18 that, they complained rather bitterly and occasionally we could make an
19 argument that we had, you know, inadvertently not put it in or we just
20 discovered that it might be relevant, but in every case that I can
21 remember we were very specific about the documents we gave to them and
22 to -- to say to us we can give you just sort of a broad general guess as
23 to what we might use is just not fair.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: We'll hear what further proposal the Prosecution
25 have, and even if nothing more is said we will consider the point you've
1 made and decide whether a tighter arrangement has to be put in place.
2 So we will adjourn now and resume at --
3 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I wish to say something.
4 I owed you 15 minutes, but now you have taken it, and I owe you nothing
5 now.
6 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you very much, Mr. Fila.
7 We shall resume at 2.15 tomorrow.
8 --- Whereupon the
hearing adjourned at
9 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 30th day
10 of August, 2007, at
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