Page 15087
1 Thursday, 25 July 2013
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 9.33 a.m.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Good morning to everyone in and around this
6 courtroom.
7 Madam Registrar, would you please call the case.
8 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours.
9 This is the case IT-09-92-T, The Prosecutor versus Ratko Mladic.
10 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Madam Registrar.
11 We will have a housekeeping session this morning. I may not
12 exactly follow the order of the numbers, but I invite the parties to get
13 to the right numbers as quickly as possible.
14 And the first matter I'd like to deal with are the -- if I could
15 call them the Wilson intercepts, which is P323, 32 -- up to 325, 327,
16 330, and D75.
17 These intercepts were dealt with by Mr. Petrusic and Ms. Bolton.
18 It was then announced, that is, the 11th of October of last year, that --
19 that there's going to be additional evidence led in these proceedings on
20 those intercepts.
21 Now, we have heard quite some evidence on intercepts recently.
22 My question is to what extent are these intercepts covered by the
23 evidence we heard?
24 [Prosecution counsel confer]
25 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, Ms. Lee.
Page 15088
1 MS. LEE: Good morning, Your Honours.
2 Yes, these intercepts, we will be hearing evidence on the
3 authenticity of these intercepts through RM507.
4 JUDGE ORIE: So we still have to wait for that until --
5 therefore, I ... then the Chamber knows when to expect such further
6 evidence and the status remains marked for identification.
7 Then I would like to deal with quite a number of exhibits. I
8 think Mr. McCloskey has sent a list with various categories: The ones
9 who require further submissions; the ones where the parties have agreed;
10 the ones where the parties have agreed to the admission pending
11 verification of transcription, CLSS translation; the ones withdrawn; and
12 those where there are no further submissions where the Chamber just has
13 to rule on them.
14 Mr. McCloskey, that list is not in the same order as my list, so
15 I hope that I have the information already available, but if I'm missing
16 anything, please assist me.
17 I'll start with D44, which is a video which we paid attention to
18 during the testimony of Mr. Vulliamy. The Defence has not followed up
19 but now I have to look at my other list.
20 Mr. Lukic.
21 MR. LUKIC: Good morning, Your Honours.
22 We still intend to tender this document. Only we cannot provide
23 B/C/S translation without a Court ruling, because the CLSS is not
24 translating into B/C/S for the Defence.
25 So we were refused several times, so we need your ruling that
Page 15089
1 CLSS is obliged to translate this document into B/C/S.
2 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Marcus.
3 MS. MARCUS: Yes, good morning, Your Honours.
4 The Prosecution position on D44 remains the same as before. The
5 video was shown in September of 2012. It's from the same source as the
6 impugned video, D43 which was marked not admitted. And, in fact, we
7 believe D44 MFI to be another segment of the very same video that -- that
8 was doctored and altered from the original based on testimony of
9 Witness Vulliamy.
10 So the Prosecution strenuously opposes admission of any video
11 material which originates from this same web site.
12 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Lukic.
13 MR. LUKIC: My colleague Ivetic with your permission would
14 explain more detail because he is more familiar with this one.
15 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Ivetic.
16 MR. IVETIC: Thank you, Your Honours.
17 As --
18 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
19 MR. IVETIC: As Mr. Lukic has explained, the issues with this
20 video were twofold. We had a draft transcript that was -- that did not
21 have a full B/C/S and was to be uploaded into the system and for that
22 Mr. Lukic has already provided you the information that the translation
23 department has rejected our request to have the B/C/S translation made.
24 With respect to the video itself, looking at the transcript, we
25 also indicated that we were going to be looking into getting information
Page 15090
1 from the station that originally aired the video to try and get a better
2 copy with better audio and to find out when it was aired. As to the
3 admissibility of the video, based upon the objections of the Prosecution,
4 from the transcript it is clear that Mr. Vulliamy recognised himself in
5 the video as being one of the persons present for the video and was asked
6 questions about the video, and so on that basis it is appropriate for
7 admission. The arguments of the Prosecution, I think, go more towards
8 the weight that would be attributed to that video in the deliberations of
9 the Chamber.
10 I can report that we have not yet finished the investigation with
11 the TV station to get the specifics of when it was aired and to get a
12 better quality audio that would be -- or video, actually, that would have
13 a better video and audio, but we hope to accomplish that.
14 And I hope that addressing everything that is relevant with
15 respect to that MFI.
16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, I hoped you would said we hoped to accomplish
17 that by --
18 MR. IVETIC: Well, Your Honours, since --
19 JUDGE ORIE: -- since it was September -- it was the
20 20th of September last year.
21 MR. IVETIC: I will definitely endeavour to do that within the
22 time-period of the recess so that's resolved before we reconvene.
23 JUDGE ORIE: Shall we do that on the first anniversary of the
24 presentation of this video that we have the matter resolved.
25 MR. IVETIC: I hope to do it before then but we can set that.
Page 15091
1 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
2 Ms. Marcus.
3 MS. MARCUS: Your Honours, that's acceptable in terms of the
4 time-frame. I would just reiterate our strenuous objection to this --
5 this video. I think it does not meet the basic threshold for
6 admissibility considering the problems with the audio that there were --
7 there was a difference in the audio of two versions of the video that
8 were shown, if Your Honours recall, and there was quite a serious concern
9 with that same video.
10 This is a portion of that same video coming from the same web
11 site. So we have a fundamental problem with -- with the basic threshold
12 of authenticity for the video.
13 JUDGE ORIE: You mean the audio primarily what we hear as
14 detonations of fire?
15 MS. MARCUS: That's right, Your Honour. Thank you.
16 JUDGE ORIE: Any response to that Mr. --
17 MR. IVETIC: That we had already responded to and we had
18 withdrawn that exhibit, which was a separate exhibit, P43, I believe,
19 Your Honours.
20 JUDGE ORIE: One second, please.
21 JUDGE MOLOTO: P43?
22 MR. IVETIC: D43. D43, Your Honours.
23 [Trial Chamber confers]
24 [Trial Chamber and Legal Officer confer]
25 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Ivetic, the Chamber gives you the time to
Page 15092
1 further investigate. This does not remove the concerns the Chamber has
2 about possible manipulation or whatever but -- forgery, or possible
3 forgery, of the video. But you get time until the 20th of
4 September of 2013 and then we'll -- if need be, we'll hear further
5 submissions and then decide.
6 MR. IVETIC: Thank you, Your Honour.
7 JUDGE ORIE: I move to D61. That is -- I see, that's on the
8 list. Parties have agreed to admission. Therefore, D61 is admitted into
9 evidence.
10 I move to D126. It says that the parties indicated that we'll
11 tender with future witnesses, and we do understand that it will be
12 through Witness Hogan.
13 Can that be confirmed?
14 MR. LUKIC: Since it's D exhibit.
15 JUDGE ORIE: Oh, it's a D exhibit, yes.
16 MR. LUKIC: Yes, we plan to tendered it through this witness,
17 Mr. Hogan.
18 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Then it keeps the status of marked for
19 identification.
20 I move to the next one, D166. And I think we are waiting for
21 further submissions from the parties on the context or the date of this
22 video.
23 The Defence, I think, would upload transcription and translation
24 of the video on e-court for verification by the Prosecution. The
25 Prosecution had no objections to admitting the entire video of two, three
Page 15093
1 minutes with the transcript, once the correct translation and CLSS
2 translations are uploaded into e-court.
3 Where are we at this moment? Mr. Lukic.
4 Yes, Ms. Lee, you're standing. You're on your feet.
5 MS. LEE: That is correct, Your Honour.
6 It's just to confirm that what you've just read out is where the
7 parties are standing at the moment.
8 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. So, therefore, the upload and verification of
9 transcription and translation is still to be done.
10 MS. LEE: Of the entire --
11 JUDGE ORIE: Of the entire two to three minutes ... video.
12 [Defence counsel confer]
13 JUDGE ORIE: I think we then also receive further information
14 about context and date.
15 MR. IVETIC: Your Honours, it looks this was with Witness Bell if
16 I have the right page now finally in front of me.
17 JUDGE ORIE: That's right.
18 MR. IVETIC: And we're ... I think this one we had to
19 double-check the transcript, and I'm pretty sure this one -- it's in
20 English, so it's also going to be one that we require if we're going to
21 get a B/C/S transcript or to get an order from the Court to satisfy the
22 CLSS. But my recollection is it's a short one, so I think there's --
23 that that we could probably get into the system within the next week
24 or --
25 JUDGE ORIE: Do you need the support of the Chamber to receive a
Page 15094
1 further translation?
2 MR. IVETIC: My understanding is when we submit transcripts in
3 English to get them translated into B/C/S that they're oftentimes
4 rejected. That's the policy of the translation services not to grant --
5 JUDGE ORIE: Was it given to CLSS?
6 MR. IVETIC: This particular one I don't know. D44 was, I know,
7 but the one [Overlapping speakers] ...
8 JUDGE ORIE: Then the Chamber would like to hear from the Defence
9 whether it has been asked -- whether CLSS has been asked to translate it.
10 Has the transcription been uploaded into e-court?
11 MR. IVETIC: I don't believe. Because I think for this one there
12 was also a second part that needed to be re-done in English because the
13 English transcript was not complete, is my recollection of this
14 particular one. That's why I don't think that this one was yet sent to
15 the translation service, but we'll --
16 JUDGE ORIE: It's pending now for five months so I think some
17 urgency is attached.
18 Ms. Lee.
19 MS. LEE: And it is -- it is just to clarify that we do maintain
20 our objection to tendering those portions of it. But we don't object to
21 tendering the entire video. So if a translation is -- is going be --
22 MR. IVETIC: [Overlapping speakers] ...
23 MS. LEE: [Overlapping speakers] ... entire --
24 MR. IVETIC: Correct.
25 MS. LEE: -- video.
Page 15095
1 JUDGE ORIE: Well, since both parties want to have this in
2 evidence, I think the Chamber would support - and that's hereby on the
3 record - the translation of English portions if that's portions or the
4 English text, the entirety -- the entire video.
5 Twenty September as well, it will be a memorable day, I think.
6 MR. IVETIC: That would be fine, Your Honour.
7 JUDGE ORIE: Twenty-nine. I move to D167. We are awaiting for
8 the verification of the accuracy of the transcript, if I'm well-informed.
9 It is a video-clip street fights in Sarajevo introduced through
10 Witness Bell.
11 MR. IVETIC: Correct, Your Honour. I think that fits in the same
12 category except that this one is just -- the transcript in English needs
13 to be verified but it's not an issue of having the entire video. It's a
14 clip. It is not an entire -- it's not a longer video so this one should
15 be done even quicker.
16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I do understand there was an incomplete
17 transcript.
18 MR. IVETIC: Correct.
19 JUDGE ORIE: And that the Defence would verify whether this video
20 comes from another case, for example, the Karadzic case.
21 MR. IVETIC: It does.
22 JUDGE ORIE: And whether the transcript is accurate --
23 MR. IVETIC: The transcript is not accurate. The transcript is
24 this same transcript that was introduced in the Karadzic case.
25 JUDGE ORIE: And not accurate.
Page 15096
1 MR. IVETIC: Correct.
2 JUDGE ORIE: We need a correct one.
3 MR. IVETIC: Correct.
4 JUDGE ORIE: Twenty-nine.
5 MR. IVETIC: Thank you.
6 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Lee, apologies.
7 MS. LEE: Yes, and it's just to confirm it's also for the
8 Prosecution to -- to agree with the transcription and the CLSS verified
9 translation. So it should be verified by the Prosecution and not the
10 Defence only.
11 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, it is transcription and translation, both to be
12 verified on its accuracy and uploaded and to be provided and then there's
13 no -- further objection.
14 MS. LEE: Yes, Your Honour.
15 MR. IVETIC: The procedure I was going to follow was to send it
16 to the Prosecution before uploading so that we can --
17 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Lee will be happy to receive it.
18 MS. LEE: [Overlapping speakers] ... thank you.
19 JUDGE ORIE: Then I move to D168. I think that's the same story,
20 if I'm not mistaken.
21 MR. IVETIC: I believe -- I believe so, Your Honour.
22 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
23 MS. LEE: It's correct Your Honour.
24 JUDGE ORIE: That would then also if it has not been done yet,
25 the 20th of September.
Page 15097
1 The Chamber is not going to wait forever after that date. We're
2 not waiting at all after that date because we have to finalise the
3 Prosecution's case and it should be clear what is and what is not in
4 evidence.
5 I think, as a matter of fact, that D169 is in the same category.
6 MR. IVETIC: It is. That is correct, Your Honour.
7 MS. LEE: Yes, it is correct, Your Honour.
8 JUDGE ORIE: Then we give it the same date as well,
9 20th of September.
10 I now move to D --
11 [Trial Chamber confers]
12 JUDGE ORIE: I think we took the 20th of September because we did
13 so with the first one, the Vulliamy testimony, which was waiting for one
14 year by then and we make that a solemn day. Therefore, D166, D167, and
15 D168 and D169 are all resolved not later than the 20th of September.
16 I move to one -- to D175. I do understand that this will be
17 tendered through a Defence expert, and, therefore, keeps the status of
18 being MFI'd, which means that it's not in evidence for -- if we have to
19 consider the Prosecution's case at the end of the presentation of it.
20 I move to D193, this instruction to Muslims to leave Trebinje was
21 waiting for the Defence review and provision of official translation. I
22 think the parties, meanwhile, agree on this one, and therefore it's ready
23 to be admitted.
24 I see Ms. Lee nodding yes.
25 D193 is admitted into evidence.
Page 15098
1 Next one, D210. The OTP has objected to admission. I do
2 understand that the -- that this exhibit will be introduced through
3 another witness and that it should be left as an exhibit -- or a document
4 marked for identification, and the Prosecution remains its objection.
5 MS. HOCHHAUSER: Yes, that's correct, Your Honour.
6 JUDGE ORIE: Then we move to D241. I think that one I saw it
7 recently.
8 MR. LUKIC: We withdraw ...
9 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, that is one of those that was withdrawn. That
10 was the map which was marked.
11 Then I move to D245. There, there was an attempt between the
12 parties to reach a stipulation and the Prosecution, as far as we are
13 aware, asked for a copy of the video as it was shown in court.
14 MS. HOCHHAUSER: That's correct. It doesn't seem that we were
15 provided the entirety and so we haven't been able to reach a stipulation
16 yet, but I -- we will keep trying, once provided that video.
17 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. But we will set a deadline to that.
18 Mr. Stojanovic.
19 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] That's right, Your Honour.
20 We'll try to do this as soon as possible within the shortest possible
21 time.
22 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. That could be 2026, isn't it, if that's
23 the ...
24 Therefore, I would like to set a deadline for that because the
25 video as shown in court should be available, and it should be possible to
Page 15099
1 present that, if not within a day, then at least within a week. The --
2 because you couldn't have presented it if you didn't have it.
3 Therefore, the Prosecution should receive a copy of the video as
4 shown in court within one week from now.
5 MS. HOCHHAUSER: And I'm just going to ask if that could be
6 directed to Mr. Weber when it comes in, because I won't be here next
7 week.
8 [Trial Chamber confers]
9 JUDGE ORIE: I turn briefly to D241 which was withdrawn but that
10 doesn't change the status in the system. Therefore D241 is now marked,
11 not admitted.
12 Then I think that for D246, the report is the same as for D45,
13 which means also to Mr. Mr. Weber, I take it.
14 MS. HOCHHAUSER: Yes, please.
15 JUDGE ORIE: A copy of the video, as shown in e-court, should be
16 sent to Mr. Weber within a week from now.
17 Then I move to D247. The Chamber has asked the parties to
18 provide the witness with a coloured printout with various zoom levels.
19 This was never done. The Defence withdraws the exhibits.
20 D247 is marked not admitted.
21 MS. HOCHHAUSER: That's -- D247 is marked not admitted, it was
22 withdrawn by the Defence, but I believe that actually we did do various
23 zoom levels in court, if you recall. We -- we -- per Your Honours'
24 request came back with some Google Earth, so that was actually done in
25 court in lieu of this exhibit.
Page 15100
1 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. But it's hereby withdrawn and, therefore, now
2 marked not admitted.
3 I move to D261 where I do understand that the parties now agree
4 that the document is ready for admission.
5 D261 is admitted into evidence. I have --- let me see. It is to
6 be admitted under seal, and is admitted hereby under seal.
7 We move to D318. We do understand that the cover page has been
8 uploaded by now and that's the -- the parties agree that this document
9 should be exhibit into evidence.
10 MR. IVETIC: That's correct, Your Honour.
11 JUDGE ORIE: And it should be under seal.
12 Therefore, D318 is admitted under seal.
13 I now move to the P exhibits. I start with P15.
14 The Prosecution indicated that this document would -- that it
15 would lead further evidence on it with other witnesses.
16 Has it -- we don't remember that it has been done. Is that one
17 of the upcoming witnesses?
18 MS. LEE: No, Your Honours. While this specific document was not
19 used with other witnesses, Witness RM163, and Witness 120 have discussed
20 the -- the status of this type of documents. The reason why this
21 document was marked for identification is because the original document
22 which appeared to be a letter from Dragomir Milosevic was -- the original
23 document was in B/C/S and the Defence objected to admission because the
24 original document is -- the original document was in English and the
25 B/C/S copy was not available.
Page 15101
1 Now, this is -- we've done our research, and when we checked the
2 records, this is the original document that we received from UN
3 headquarters, and it was in English. And, therefore, we believe that
4 this document should be admitted. There has been evidence by
5 Witnesses RM163 and 120 where internal translation of document had been
6 done at that time. And so we move for admission of this document.
7 JUDGE ORIE: Any response from the Defence on P15?
8 [Defence counsel confer]
9 MR. LUKIC: It is -- although we talked about all the documents,
10 this is all still unclear to us. Even if the internal translation was
11 done, the original should be somewhere, if ...
12 JUDGE ORIE: I suggest that a cup of coffee or a cup of tea
13 during the next break should bring more clarity in the matter.
14 [Trial Chamber confers]
15 JUDGE ORIE: Before you have that cup of coffee or cup of tea,
16 the description is excerpt from the order of implementation of the
17 anti-sniping agreement, signed on the 14th of August, 1994, given to all
18 troops of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps from Dragomir Milosevic.
19 You said that is in English. That a document sent to the
20 troops --
21 MS. LEE: No, Your Honours. If you look at the document, it says
22 to UNPROFOR. And so it's a document that was addressed to UNPROFOR. And
23 it is -- and -- and this is the original document that we received from
24 UN headquarters.
25 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Then the description, at least, causes some
Page 15102
1 confusion to me. But let's have a look at the document.
2 Could we have P15 on our screens.
3 Is the Prosecution position that this is the original as sent to
4 the UNPROFOR Command, Sector Sarajevo?
5 MS. LEE: Yes, Your Honours.
6 JUDGE ORIE: Whether it has been preceded by any B/C/S version is
7 another matter. But this is the document, as sent and this is the
8 document tendered into evidence?
9 MS. LEE: Yes, Your Honours.
10 MR. LUKIC: Only one thing. We have doubts that
11 General Milosevic signed English version of the document. If he did, he
12 didn't know what he was signing.
13 JUDGE ORIE: Well, that's a matter of weight, and that is -- it
14 may be that he verified with his own staff that what he signed was an
15 accurate translation of a document he saw in another language. But that
16 is probative value and weight, Mr. Lukic, rather than admissibility.
17 JUDGE FLUEGGE: And from the -- from the document we can see it
18 was signed by somebody else for the Commander Milosevic.
19 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
20 MR. LUKIC: And --
21 MS. LEE: And --
22 MR. LUKIC: Do we have a copy with signature? Obviously this one
23 is not signed in the English.
24 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Lee.
25 MS. LEE: This, Your Honour, just to correct line 11 of page 15,
Page 15103
1 the Prosecution's position is that this is a document as received by
2 UNPROFOR, and so there may have been internal translations that happened
3 at that time, but this is a document as received by UNPROFOR. And this
4 is a document that we received as well.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Even if it was a courtesy translation into English
6 of another document, but this, you say this document was received --
7 MS. LEE: Yes.
8 JUDGE ORIE: -- as such.
9 [Trial Chamber confers]
10 JUDGE ORIE: Perhaps as an unsigned translation or accompanying,
11 or just courtesy.
12 Mr. Lukic.
13 MR. LUKIC: Your Honour, I don't know from the top of my head
14 what RM163 and RM120 testified here. But it's -- for me, it's very
15 unlikely that the original document from VRS was in English. It -- even
16 if it was sent. We saw the document sent to UNPROFOR usually had two
17 versions, both in B/C/S and English.
18 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
19 Ms. Lee.
20 MS. LEE: Again, Your Honour, this is -- we're not stating that
21 this is a document sent by the VRS in English. We are stating that this
22 B/C/S -- this English translation of -- of a B/C/S document is the copy
23 that UNPROFOR had received. And throughout the course of this trial, we
24 have seen documents dating from -- between 1992 and 1995 where there were
25 B/C/S -- where there were documents that were available in both
Page 15104
1 languages. And communications between the -- the SRK and the UNPROFOR
2 were -- there were documents in both B/C/S and English translation.
3 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Lukic.
4 MR. LUKIC: Exactly, in both languages [Overlapping speakers] ...
5 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, but does that affect the admissibility of the
6 this one where, if it is sufficiently established - I say if - that this
7 was a translation copy, whatever, but was a piece of paper with this text
8 on it received by UNPROFOR.
9 MR. LUKIC: As you proposed, let's leave it for the coffee break.
10 JUDGE ORIE: We leave it to the coffee break.
11 JUDGE MOLOTO: Before we leave it for the coffee break, may I
12 just confirm with Madam Lee, Madam Lee, are you saying that UNPROFOR
13 received this document unsigned, whether by Dragomir Milosevic or by the
14 person who signed for him?
15 MS. LEE: Your Honours, I cannot answer that question just by
16 looking at this document. This is --
17 JUDGE MOLOTO: That will be part of the coffee break then.
18 MS. LEE: Yes, Your Honours.
19 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, now the copy you are presenting as having been
20 received by UNPROFOR is unsigned. It says -- it gives an indication that
21 it may once have been signed either in this version or in a version of
22 another language. But from this document, and if this document is
23 received, then, apart from any other copies, they received an unsigned
24 copy.
25 MS. LEE: That's fair enough, Your Honours.
Page 15105
1 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. We leave it for the coffee break further.
2 JUDGE FLUEGGE: It would be helpful if the Prosecution could
3 provide the Chamber with a reference to the testimony of the
4 two-mentioned witnesses so that we can check if they testified about this
5 document.
6 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. If you would send that to Mr. Monkhouse, then
7 the -- the details.
8 MS. LEE: Yes, Your Honours. I will provide that information as
9 soon as possible.
10 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you.
11 JUDGE FLUEGGE: And to the Defence.
12 MS. LEE: And to the Defence as well. Thank you.
13 JUDGE ORIE: P250. I do understand that the Prosecution
14 withdraws this document.
15 MS. LEE: That is correct, Your Honours.
16 JUDGE ORIE: P250 is --
17 [Trial Chamber confers]
18 JUDGE ORIE: P250 is marked, not admitted.
19 P251, same report applies. P251 is marked, not admitted.
20 I move to P315. The Prosecution indicated that it would tender
21 it through another witness.
22 MS. LEE: Actually, there has been ...
23 [Prosecution counsel confer]
24 JUDGE ORIE: But -- or through a bar table motion.
25 MS. MARCUS: Our apologies, Your Honours. Just before court we
Page 15106
1 discussed with the Defence, and the Defence has not objection to
2 admission of the documents, so we'd like it to be admitted, with your
3 leave.
4 MR. IVETIC: That's correct.
5 JUDGE ORIE: P315 is admitted into evidence.
6 P431. The parties, as the Chamber was informed, have agreed on
7 which pages to tender. Have the selected pages agreed upon by the
8 parties been uploaded into e-court?
9 MS. HOCHHAUSER: Your Honours, as to P431, MFI, the
10 16th Assembly Session, we have agreed to its tendering in its entirety.
11 JUDGE ORIE: In its entirety.
12 MR. IVETIC: That's correct.
13 JUDGE ORIE: P431, you say you tender it in its entirety. What's
14 the number of pages?
15 MS. HOCHHAUSER: Your Honours, it's a 56-page document. Shall I
16 continue?
17 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, please.
18 MS. HOCHHAUSER: Okay. It's a 56-page document. It's the
19 1st Assembly Session that Mladic addresses and takes place on the day
20 that he becomes commander of the VRS.
21 His speech, which alone covers 17 of those pages in the e-court
22 text, approximately a third of the document, is relevant to multiple
23 components of the case and has been cited heavily, for instance, in the
24 Krajisnik Trial Chamber, in its judgement. Many of the other speakers
25 also provide highly relevant information. Karadzic, for example, speaks
Page 15107
1 for approximately ten page, setting out the strategic goals and the
2 necessity to achieve a state that --
3 JUDGE ORIE: If I can stop you. You have convinced the Chamber
4 already.
5 MS. HOCHHAUSER: Yeah, excellent.
6 JUDGE ORIE: P431 in accordance with the joint proposal by the
7 parties is admitted in evidence.
8 I move to P671, also expected to be tendered through Mr. Hogan
9 and therefore should remain as marked for identification. Is that
10 correct?
11 MS. HOCHHAUSER: Yes, Judge.
12 Then we move on to P788. The parties agree that P788 should be
13 admitted [Overlapping speakers] ...
14 MS. LEE: Yes, Your Honours.
15 JUDGE ORIE: P788 is admitted into evidence.
16 I move to P840.
17 MS. HOCHHAUSER: Your Honour, I'm sorry if I might interrupt.
18 P764, I think, was missed by the Chamber. I'm not sure if that was
19 purposeful.
20 JUDGE ORIE: 764 is -- perhaps I may come to that later, as you
21 may have -- I put a little note that we have not dealt with P, you said,
22 764.
23 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
24 JUDGE ORIE: It is already admitted on the 23rd of July, yes.
25 And I think I remember that we did that.
Page 15108
1 MS. HOCHHAUSER: Sorry for the interruption, Your Honour.
2 JUDGE ORIE: No problem.
3 I think we were at P84 ...
4 [Trial Chamber confers]
5 JUDGE ORIE: 840, to be verified through other witnesses, I do
6 understand. But, at the same time, my information is that the parties
7 agree to the admission of this document.
8 Mr. Ivetic.
9 MR. IVETIC: That's correct.
10 JUDGE ORIE: Therefore, P840 is admitted into evidence.
11 Mr. Mladic would like to consult with counsel, it seems.
12 [Defence counsel confer]
13 JUDGE ORIE: I move to the next one --
14 MR. IVETIC: We can proceed, Your Honours.
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 [Private session]
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 15109
1
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11 Page 15109 redacted. Private session.
12
13
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15
16
17
18
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20
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Page 15110
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 [Open session]
14 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session, Your Honours.
15 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Madam Registrar.
16 We are at P1087, which is the Srebrenica map book. We do
17 understand that the parties are awaiting a decision by the Chamber, but
18 the question is whether there are any further submissions to be made
19 before we decide.
20 MR. McCLOSKEY: I have nothing further to say, though I do -- it
21 may, after -- it may be helpful if the Defence could tell us what their
22 position is. I -- my recollection is it's the markings where we had
23 marked mass executions on one of the maps was one of the -- if not the
24 main objection and if the Defence is still, at this stage, contesting
25 that mass executions occurred at these places that may be helpful in the
Page 15111
1 resolution. But I would offer nothing else except to perhaps remind the
2 Court a very similar map book is in from -- on the Sarajevo case with a
3 few additions by the Prosecution, such as this.
4 JUDGE ORIE: And do I have to understand, pending resolution of
5 all evidentiary issues that what is depicted on the map is where the
6 Prosecution claims mass executions have taken place and not in itself -
7 and I emphasise in itself - the evidence of those mass executions.
8 MR. McCLOSKEY: Absolutely.
9 MR. IVETIC: Your Honour, I believe we made our points succinctly
10 and in full the last time. The issue is, of course, that when asked --
11 the witness whom this was to be tendered through, when asked what were
12 the sources for the markings, who made the markings, et cetera, the
13 answers that we received were insufficient to give it any evidentiary
14 value, apart from it being a demonstrative exhibit perhaps to be used by
15 the Prosecution in its submissions. And our argument was that the time
16 of trial is not the time for parties submissions, that that should be
17 saved for closing arguments. And I think we still stand on that
18 position, Your Honours.
19 JUDGE ORIE: The Chamber will rule on the matter.
20 I move to P1450. It was tendered from the bar table. It was
21 MFI'd at the request of the Office of the Prosecutor pending discussions
22 with the Defence. I am informed that the parties agree on admission of
23 P1450.
24 MS. LEE: Yes, Your Honours.
25 JUDGE ORIE: P1450 is admitted into evidence.
Page 15112
1 I move to P1518. I do understand that this document, an excerpt
2 from video footage by Mr. Petrovic, was MFI'd pending the use of
3 additional portions with other witnesses, but that, meanwhile, at this
4 moment, that the parties agree that what is in P1518 can be admitted.
5 Then P1518 is admitted into evidence.
6 P1659. The parties, as the Chamber was informed, agree that it
7 is ready for admission.
8 MS. LEE: Yes, Your Honour. It's actually P15 -- 1659 through
9 1667. They are all in the same category.
10 JUDGE ORIE: I read the numbers.
11 P1659 is admitted into evidence.
12 P1660 is admitted into evidence.
13 P1661 is admitted.
14 P1662 is also admitted but under seal.
15 And I return to P1659, which should be under seal as well.
16 Then P1663, same report, also admitted into evidence, under seal.
17 P1664, same report, admitted into evidence as a public exhibit.
18 P1665, same report, hereby admitted into evidence, under seal.
19 P1666, same report, and, therefore, also now admitted into
20 evidence, under seal.
21 P1667, same report; therefore, based on this agreement between
22 the parties, admitted under seal.
23 And that ends my list at this very moment.
24 Apart from a few coffee or tea items remaining, the Chamber is --
25 highly appreciates the efficiency the parties demonstrated during this
Page 15113
1 session. We'll take the break and -- perhaps I would not see all the
2 members of the Prosecution's team after the break. To the extent we'll
3 not see them again, I wish them, on behalf of the Chamber, a good recess.
4 If there's any matter remaining for the Defence, I'd like to hear
5 in the next two minutes. I saw that Mr. Mladic was seeking contact with
6 the ...
7 MR. IVETIC: No, Your Honour. But I believe that counsel has one
8 matter that's --
9 MS. HOCHHAUSER: I just wanted to inquire of the Chamber if you
10 still intended for us to discuss RM506's evidence -- the admission of
11 RM506's evidence today. I believe we were to argue about that as well.
12 MR. IVETIC: Both parties have sent an e-mail with our positions
13 and I'm willing to stand on that, so maybe if we could -- if you want
14 to -- it's Your Honours' leave, but both parties have sent an e-mail to
15 Chambers with our positions.
16 JUDGE ORIE: Is there any need for any further oral argument?
17 MS. HOCHHAUSER: There's one point I would like to add to the --
18 to the e-mail that I sent which I could do briefly.
19 JUDGE ORIE: How much time would that take?
20 MS. HOCHHAUSER: Two to three minutes.
21 JUDGE ORIE: I would suggest that we do that now so as to be able
22 to continue with the hearing of testimony after the break.
23 MR. IVETIC: That's fine. We should be in private session, I
24 believe.
25 MR. LUKIC: I'm sorry, I will have to address a couple of issues
Page 15114
1 on behalf of Mr. Mladic.
2 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. But that then cannot be done -- or how much
3 time would that take?
4 MR. LUKIC: A couple of minutes, too.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Then I ... it is, therefore, foreseeable that we
6 would need another ten minutes approximately.
7 Now I leave it in the hands of the Defence whether they prefer to
8 deal with the matters before we take a break which would extend -- I see
9 Mr. Mladic is nodding yes. If that could be confirmed by counsel.
10 MR. LUKIC: We can continue.
11 JUDGE ORIE: We can continue for another ten minutes.
12 Then I suggest that, Ms. Hochhauser, that you make any -- but in
13 private session, any additional remarks on -- what was it?
14 MR. IVETIC: RM506.
15 JUDGE ORIE: RM506.
16 Please, do so. But we first turn into private session.
17 [Private session]
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 15115
1
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11 Pages 15115-15119 redacted. Private session.
12
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17
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22
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24
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Page 15120
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 [Open session]
4 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session, Your Honours.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Madam Registrar.
6 Which means that the revised English translation is now ready,
7 and, therefore, the Chamber requests the Registry to replace the current
8 English translation in e-court with the newly uploaded one.
9 We take a break, and we'll resume at five minutes past 11.00.
10 --- Recess taken at 10.45 a.m.
11 --- On resuming at 11.09 a.m.
12 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. McCloskey, is the Prosecution ready to call its
13 next witness?
14 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Mr. President.
15 JUDGE ORIE: And that will be Helge Brunborg, if I'm
16 well-informed.
17 Could the witness be escorted into the courtroom.
18 Mr. McCloskey, meanwhile, I'll use the opportunity. The -- I
19 think there were many, many, many pages of underlying materials here to
20 the report. We gladly observed that, for the previous witness, that the
21 number of pages was substantially reduced.
22 Is there any way we could expect a similar exercise here?
23 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Mr. President, in discussing this and going
24 over it, I will just be offering the 2009 updated report and the missing
25 list that go along with it. The other reports and many of the other
Page 15121
1 documents I -- I admit this is going to be fairly abbreviated. There may
2 be two or three things I offer. But just everything in consideration, I
3 think, the guide-lines are very well founded in this case so it should be
4 much less than the list.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Then it goes without saying that if there's
6 any challenge which requires the parties and us to look at underlying,
7 documents, reports, whatever, that that, of course, changes the situation
8 and may cause us to pay more detailed attention to those rather than to
9 the end result, and, therefore, it's not a way to limit the rights of the
10 parties but to be provided with only those materials which we need under
11 the procedural circumstances as they develop in court.
12 [The witness entered court]
13 JUDGE ORIE: Good morning, Mr. Brunborg. Could I invite you to
14 remain standing for a second.
15 The Rules require that you make a solemn declaration, the text of
16 which is now handed out to you. May I invite you to make that solemn
17 declaration.
18 THE WITNESS: Thank you, sir.
19 I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the whole truth,
20 and nothing but the truth.
21 WITNESS: HELGE BRUNBORG
22 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you. Please be seated.
23 Mr. Brunborg, you will first be examined by Mr. McCloskey.
24 Mr. McCloskey is counsel for the Prosecution, as you may be aware of, and
25 you'll find him to your right.
Page 15122
1 Mr. McCloskey.
2 MR. LUKIC: I apologise for a second.
3 I didn't want to be rude and interrupt Your Honours. I just want
4 to be excused. Thank you.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. You are excused, Mr. Lukic.
6 Mr. Ivetic will take care of the cross-examination.
7 Please proceed.
8 Examination by Mr. McCloskey:
9 Q. Good morning. Could you state your name for the record.
10 A. My name is Helge Brunborg, spelled H-e-l-g-e and B-r-u-n-b-o-r-g.
11 Q. And what is your profession?
12 A. I'm a researcher in demography.
13 MR. McCLOSKEY: And could we have a CV - it's 65 ter 05319 - up.
14 Q. Can you tell us how long have you been a demographer and just
15 give us a little background about what that means?
16 JUDGE MOLOTO: Could you just repeat the number. It's somewhat
17 incorrect on this record.
18 MR. McCLOSKEY: 05319.
19 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.
20 THE WITNESS: I became interested in demography when I was a
21 student of economics at the University of Oslo. That was in the early
22 1970s and I worked on demography ever since.
23 MR. McCLOSKEY:
24 Q. What is that?
25 A. Demography is the study of human populations. The size and
Page 15123
1 development and composition of human populations. It also includes a lot
2 of methodological matters, how to deal with numbers, how to estimate, how
3 to project, and it is concerned about the causes of and consequences of
4 the demographic change.
5 Q. And is this your CV that is -- it's an old one, up to 2007. That
6 we have up there now?
7 A. It seems like, yes.
8 MR. McCLOSKEY: Can I just offer this into evidence. We won't
9 spend a lot of time going over it.
10 MR. IVETIC: No objections.
11 JUDGE ORIE: Madam Registrar.
12 THE REGISTRAR: Document 05319 receives number P1890,
13 Your Honours.
14 JUDGE ORIE: P1890 is admitted.
15 MR. McCLOSKEY: If we could have the short updated CV,
16 65 ter 29132. And we just got this, Mr. President, so if we could seek
17 leave to add this to the 65 ter list.
18 MR. IVETIC: No objection.
19 JUDGE ORIE: Leave is granted. Is this an updated CV? Because
20 then we might not need the previous one. Or is there any reason to have
21 the updated -- if it is an update, then, of course, they should be both
22 in evidence.
23 MR. McCLOSKEY: I can ask the witness --
24 Q. This -- was this just a bit of an addition, and so we do need the
25 original, I believe, [indiscernible] pictures?
Page 15124
1 A. That's correct.
2 JUDGE ORIE: It's an update. I see it now.
3 Any -- you want to first ask questions about it or ...
4 MR. McCLOSKEY: Not in detail, no.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Then you want to tender it, I take it?
6 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes.
7 MR. IVETIC: No objection.
8 JUDGE ORIE: Madam Registrar, the update to the CV of
9 Mr. Brunborg.
10 THE REGISTRAR: Document 29132 receives P1891.
11 JUDGE ORIE: And is admitted into evidence.
12 MR. McCLOSKEY: And we can leave that for a while.
13 Q. Can you give us basically an update what you have been doing in
14 the last five years, but just briefly to give us a picture in your -- in
15 your private work life.
16 A. My main job has been to be in charge of the making population
17 projections for Norway as a project leader for that, and I have written a
18 lot on that. And I have also been project leader for a large sample
19 survey in Norway called the generations and gender survey. In addition
20 to going to United Nations for meetings, where I have been representing
21 Norway, and also been here a couple of times.
22 Q. And what -- what's the company or the institution you work for?
23 A. I work for Statistics Norway in the re-search department which is
24 a government institution.
25 Q. And were you asked to join the Office of the Prosecutor several
Page 15125
1 years ago to assist in some of our demographic issues?
2 A. That's correct. I started doing that in mid-1997 and worked
3 on -- was employed until the end of 1998 and on the consulting basis for
4 a few weeks each year for the following two or three years.
5 Q. And you've written several reports for the Srebrenica case in
6 particular; is that correct?
7 A. That's correct.
8 Q. Your latest being the 2009 update?
9 A. That's correct.
10 Q. From, I believe, an earlier report in 2000, 2005?
11 A. Those are the main reports, yes and there are some addenda and
12 other material that I have also written alone or in co-operation with
13 colleagues at the Tribunal.
14 Q. All right. And the Judges have that -- that 2009 report so I
15 won't at this point go into a lot of detail.
16 But can you tell us what was your first -- when you first got to
17 the Tribunal and were being paid by the OTP, what was your -- your first
18 assignment?
19 A. It was to evaluate or estimate the demographic consequences of
20 the armed conflicts in Bosnia during period 1992 to 1995.
21 Q. What does that mean?
22 A. There was complete bewilderment about what had happened in terms
23 of numbers. Say about the number of killed persons where the estimates
24 ranged from a little bit more than 20.000 to 328.000, so based on various
25 articles and press reports. So the Prosecution thought it would be
Page 15126
1 useful to have somebody with experience in demographic and population
2 statistics to go through these estimates or come up with new and better
3 estimates, both on number of dead, on displaced persons, on migrations,
4 population size, et cetera.
5 THE INTERPRETER: Kindly slow down for the interpreters, please.
6 Thank you very much.
7 MR. McCLOSKEY: Sure.
8 Q. You are the last witness and we're -- you may find us in a bit of
9 an anxious to -- to get through, but I'll try to slow down.
10 So I won't go into that initial project with you. Did you, after
11 coming here, get an assignment related to the Srebrenica investigation?
12 A. Yes. At the end of 1998, I was asked evaluate the lists of
13 missing and dead persons from Srebrenica, as reported in lists from the
14 International Committee of the Red Cross, the ICRC.
15 Q. And has that been the subject matter of your various reports that
16 you have just spoken of?
17 A. I know I should wait a little before answer.
18 That -- that is correct. Together with my successors at the
19 Tribunal, I have also written some reports on Kosovo that have been
20 presented to this Court.
21 Q. Okay. So let's -- you said that you were basically were looking
22 at the ICRC report on missing and in order to -- to review it and
23 basically examine and check out its accuracy. Is that a fair synopsis?
24 A. That's correct. But it soon became obvious that some closer
25 scrutiny was -- and work was necessary than just looking at it.
Page 15127
1 Q. Okay. Can you first tell us a bit about what you learned from
2 the ICRC? What kind of report this was? How did they do it? We know
3 that the ICRC is a very private institution in many respects because they
4 deal so closely with victims and refugees in conflict. But what did you
5 learn about this ICRC list and how it was put together?
6 A. Well, first, ICRC was established in 1863, 150 years ago. It is
7 based in Switzerland. It's a humanitarian, non-governmental organisation
8 that is -- is helping people in conflict situations, so it tries to --
9 very hard to be neutral so it has access to persons on both sides of the
10 line in a conflict. Excuse me. Soon after the armed conflicts in the
11 former Yugoslavia broke out, they -- there was a lot of confusion. Some
12 people were killed. They were displaced. They started collecting lists
13 of missing persons to help relatives -- to help people locate each other.
14 And with regard to Srebrenica, then they started in -- in July 1995 to --
15 to collect lists of relatives who came to -- first to Tuzla and reported
16 that many of the relatives have -- were missing.
17 Q. Can you give us a bit more detail on how the ICRC, to your
18 knowledge, went about receiving information on missing people. Who did
19 they receive this information from? What kind of information did they
20 note down?
21 A. At the -- at their centres in Tuzla and Sarajevo and elsewhere,
22 people could approach them and then there would be a person filling out a
23 questionnaire with questions on their missing person: Name, surname,
24 father's name, date of birth, place of birth, when seen last alive, and
25 also, of course, the name of the person reported that person as missing,
Page 15128
1 which was usually a close relative.
2 Q. Did they ask where the person was thought to be last seen?
3 A. Yes. Or where their person was believed to be dead. In some
4 cases, the relatives of other people had seen the person being killed but
5 in most case it was the last place seen alive.
6 Q. And you said people would report. Did the ICRC try to
7 concentrate on certain people reporting or could anyone just walk in and
8 make a report?
9 A. No. They -- they preferred close relatives because they knew --
10 well, first they had most information about the missing persons and,
11 secondly, they were those in the greatest need of learning what happened
12 about their relatives. We have looked at this and we found that in
13 95 per cent of the cases the person was reported as missing by a close
14 relative.
15 Q. Okay. Can you now just outline for us, you have this ICRC list.
16 Can you give us just the volume of that list and what you did to go about
17 reviewing it and looking into it, what some of the problems you -- you
18 found were and how you solved them, or didn't?
19 A. First, we needed to check the -- the accuracy of the information.
20 We did not have access to the original questionnaires that were completed
21 but we could check the list in many ways.
22 The first and most obvious thing was to check whether there were
23 any duplicates, whether a person was wrongly reported two or more times
24 by family members. And we found several duplicates that were deleted in
25 most cases.
Page 15129
1 Q. Can you -- as you're on that subject, was there any fundamental
2 documents or collections that helped you determine who people were in the
3 former Yugoslavia that helped you determine duplicates aside from just
4 the names itselves?
5 A. Yes. We got access to the full 1991 census which was taken on
6 the 31st of March, 1991, on the eve of the conflicts. And by meaning the
7 full census, I mean that we had an electronic version of the census with
8 a name and full name, date of birth, and more about every person who was
9 enumerated in the census. So if we were in doubt about a person on the
10 ICRC list, we could compare -- we could look up the census list and see
11 if the person was enumerated in 1991.
12 Q. And again I know this in itself could be --
13 JUDGE ORIE: Could -- the court reporter is asking for pauses
14 between questions and answers but also between answer and question.
15 MR. McCLOSKEY:
16 Q. All right. And I understand that the -- the census could be a
17 whole other body of study, but as a demographer and becoming familiar
18 with this census, could you first tell us census of what, and what --
19 what your view of its -- its credibility was in your view?
20 A. A census is in this regard a census of the population of a
21 territory. And it was taken when in all the republics of the former
22 Yugoslavia in March 1991, as it has been done previously approximately
23 every ten years, as in most countries of the world. There are
24 enumerators who go from house to house and collect information of the
25 people in each household including their full name of each person.
Page 15130
1 Q. And the Trial Chamber is -- is well aware that there are many
2 names in Bosnia that are very similar. If -- and identical, of course.
3 How did that affect your work and how did you deal with that -- that
4 problem?
5 A. If we were in doubt about the person -- but then, of course, as
6 you say, a similar name is a problem. But in addition to first name and
7 family name, we have the father's name, we had date of birth, place of
8 birth, place of residence. So those problems could be solved with --
9 when had a lot of information.
10 Some of the problems were, though, that many of the names were
11 wrongly spelled. There were spelling mistakes because the census forms
12 were scanned and transferred to an electronic format. So in that many
13 errors popped up.
14 Another problem is that the date of birth was not always
15 correctly reported in the -- by the ICRC because the relatives did not
16 remember or did not know the full date of birth. The year of birth was
17 correctly reported, or at least reported in most cases, but there were
18 many cases where the full date of birth was not reported.
19 Q. So when you came across these -- these problems, what did you do
20 in -- in the -- in the reviewing of the ICRC list? How did you create
21 your own list which, I think we know that you've done and we'll get to
22 the list briefly. But when problems arose did you put these people on
23 your list or did you delete them? How did that work?
24 A. If -- in most cases, we put those -- people were already on the
25 list so we -- we took the ICRC list and actually we had several ICRC
Page 15131
1 list. We had to merge those by deleting persons who appeared in both
2 lists. We had version 4 of 1998, version 3 of 1997, et cetera. So these
3 were merged and they were also merged with lists from -- of missing and
4 dead persons from the PHR, Physicians for Human Rights, an American-based
5 organisation, resulting in a list of between 7- and 9.000 persons.
6 Q. Can you -- the Trial Chamber has heard a little bit about PHR in
7 the field of exhumations but can you tell us what you learned what PHR
8 was doing in terms of getting information on the missing.
9 A. Their primary function in this way was to assist authorities to
10 identify people who were found dead by collecting information from family
11 members, about clothing, dental features, et cetera, about the missing
12 persons, to -- as I said, to assist in the identification. So they
13 collected much more information than the ICRC. Again, to avoid
14 duplicates we had to be careful so that persons on the -- persons
15 appeared only once on -- on our list, on the OTP list, so that people
16 could be -- of the ICRC list or PHR list or both but they -- on our list
17 it should be only once.
18 Q. And so as you're merging the ICRC and the PHR and -- lists and
19 trying to clear out as many duplicates or insufficient information folks,
20 what else did you do in terms of a quality control of the -- of those --
21 those numbers and the -- the people? Did you, for example, determine if
22 the people even existed at all in any way?
23 A. We did that by comparing with the census list. If they been
24 enumerated in 1991, then there is a high probability that they existed.
25 The other thing we did was to check whether there were any possible
Page 15132
1 survivors among the missing persons. The ICRC in some cases got
2 information about survivors and then the people were taken off the list.
3 But --
4 Q. Sorry, let me ask you while we are on that topic. You have
5 mentioned that there have been different versions of the ICRC list. Can
6 you explain it -- was this a work in progress, something that continued
7 from the -- from the war time through the end of the war? Can you
8 explain that a little bit as I think you've just dipped into it.
9 A. Yes. The list for all of Bosnia was established, I think, in
10 1992. And in 1995 many persons missing from Srebrenica were added and
11 they were continued up to now. Now in 2008 there was a new version.
12 Sometimes in the 2000s the list was put on -- on their web sites of ICRC.
13 This is a public list to -- again to help people locate relatives.
14 Q. And for your 2009 updated report which is the subject matter of
15 today, were you able to reference that ICRC updated information?
16 A. Yes. We got an updated list, ICRC list in 2008, which was then
17 merged with the previous list or our previous OTP list deleting overlaps
18 and checking the quality of the data.
19 Q. All right. And if -- if we can go to the -- go to your report
20 from 2009. It should be 65 ter 11269.
21 And is this the -- the first page of -- of your updated 2009
22 report?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And let's -- I want to take us right to some of the basic
25 conclusions.
Page 15133
1 If we could go to page 6 in the English, page 6 in the B/C/S.
2 Now, I really just want to focus on this little chart that's up
3 there so if we could blow that -- that up.
4 And we see this is entitled: Number of Srebrenica missing and
5 Srebrenica identified. Can you tell us what that means and what this --
6 where you got these numbers, how this was arrived at, just briefly so we
7 fully understand these numbers.
8 A. The 2005 OTP list was made from the original 2000 list with
9 updates. Then we merged the 2008 ICRC list with the 2005 list. We got
10 29 additional individuals so making the total number of missing of 7.692.
11 In 2005, 5.053 persons were identified; that means identified as
12 dead. The 2008 ICRC list resulted in eight more dead, bringing the
13 number of dead identified persons to 5.061 which is 65.8 per cent of the
14 number of missing.
15 Q. All right. So the Trial Chamber has heard at some length about
16 the ICMP project to DNA identify people. For your 2009 report were you
17 able to incorporate that data of people identified by name or by unique
18 DNA profile without a name? Were you able to incorporate that into your
19 work?
20 A. Absolutely. The ICMP has provided extremely valuable information
21 about identified dead persons.
22 The work of ICMP, though, started after we -- our work. The
23 first identification was done in 2001. So when we presented the first
24 list in 2000 we had no deaths confirmed by DNA analysis but this has
25 proven to be an extremely helpful method.
Page 15134
1 Q. And we note throughout your reports and some of your testimony
2 that this is called "the missing list," and we'll get to that as well,
3 and you've mentioned missing and dead. We also note that other times
4 you're referring to killed people. By the time you were given your first
5 task about Srebrenica a few years after the war, did the -- clearly you
6 and the rest of the world had heard that there had been alleged mass
7 executions in Srebrenica. Did you become aware of this information and
8 what -- what role, if any, did it play in your work?
9 A. I knew, of course, that there were -- there had been killings in
10 Srebrenica. I read press reports, seen videos, read books. I knew about
11 that. But in the task given to me by the OTP, I was only asked to
12 evaluate the list of missing persons which includes both missing and dead
13 persons. I was not asked to evaluate or say something about whether they
14 were killed or not.
15 Q. All right. Let's go to the actual list that was the update --
16 JUDGE ORIE: Before we do so Mr. McCloskey.
17 Could I ask you a question. Looking at table 1 it says 2005 OTP
18 list. And then 2008 ICRC list. Do I understand you well that this is
19 not the number of persons appearing on the ICRC list but 29 persons
20 appearing on the ICRC list which are not included in the OTP list? Is
21 that how --
22 THE WITNESS: That is correct, sir. This is after the merging.
23 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And the -- so may I take it that the ICRC list
24 has been far longer? What was the number of approximately of persons on
25 the ICRC list which also appeared on the OTP list, or, to put the
Page 15135
1 question in a different way, how many people were on the initial OTP list
2 which did not appear on the ICRC list? I'm trying to see to what extent
3 there's overlap between the two, whether the information is congruent.
4 THE WITNESS: I'm not sure I understand your question completely.
5 But they were -- on the 2008 ICRC list there were 29 additional persons.
6 Then -- and some may also have been deleted but I don't have the numbers
7 here because that's written in the report. Because ICRC probably - that
8 can be checked - found some people who were -- listed some people as dead
9 and deleted them from the new version of the -- their list.
10 Their list is only about -- or, sorry. Who were then survivors.
11 Their list is only about missing and dead. It should not include any
12 survivors. That's why they delete. And if they have deleted a name
13 because it's a survivor, we were also doing it.
14 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Could you give us an impression as to -- to --
15 apart in those details where you had to strike certain names because
16 there were survivors -- who turned out to be survivors, how many persons
17 were there on the original long ICRC list which matched with
18 approximately how many on the OTP list, so the names remaining on the
19 merged list as having appeared on both lists before and not disqualified
20 as survivor or ...
21 THE WITNESS: Yeah. Approximately seven and a half thousand.
22 There were very few very few -- very marginal changes.
23 But, in addition, in our list, we had a few hundred people from
24 the PHR list which were not reported in the ICRC list. So the main
25 difference is a couple of hundred persons on the PHR list.
Page 15136
1 JUDGE ORIE: But still the bulk of the names on the one list
2 appeared on the other list as well.
3 THE WITNESS: Yes. Basically between seven and a half and 8.000
4 persons had been on all the Srebrenica-related missing list, whether they
5 come from ICRC version, from ICMP, or otherwise.
6 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, thank you.
7 MR. McCLOSKEY:
8 Q. I think you had made a comment early in your testimony that
9 something about when you looked at the ICRC list it became important that
10 it needed some work. I -- can you give us an idea based on your work
11 how -- how good was that original ICRC list? I think what -- what -- the
12 President was getting at -- did -- were there a lot of names on the ICRC
13 list that you had to cut out because they were duplicates or wrong or
14 turned out to alive, that kind of thing?
15 A. There were not a whole lot of duplicates, a couple of dozen. But
16 the important thing was then we were concerned about whether there were
17 people on the ICRC list who were alive and who had not been taken off the
18 list by us -- ICRC because they did not have information to --
19 everything.
20 So we -- if I may, we -- we compared our list and the ICRC list
21 with a list of survivors, people we knew survived the war. And the main
22 such list is a list of voters, people who voted in 1997 and 1998, since
23 people who registered to vote cannot be dead. If they register to vote,
24 a person on the missing list registered to vote, there's a probability
25 that that was a survivor. So that was checked.
Page 15137
1 We also compared the missing list with people who were later
2 registered as displaced persons.
3 Q. Let me stop you there. Again, you've talked about the voters'
4 registration list. Can you give the Trial Chamber just the briefest
5 history on who in Bosnia compiled this voters' registration list and what
6 it was used for. That may be sort of obvious in its name.
7 A. Yes. The first election in Bosnia after the conflict ended was
8 in 1996. Then they did not have time to make a special voters' list so
9 they used the 1991 census as a basis to vote. So people who were on --
10 enumerated in 1991 above 18 years of age were allowed to vote.
11 In the next elections, people had to come forward and register to
12 vote and this work was overseen by the OSCE, the Organization for
13 Security and Co-operation in Europe. They had a special office in
14 Sarajevo and they do this in many countries. That part of the
15 organisation is based in Warsaw. So I went to see them several times and
16 I got an electronic list with -- first 1997 and then 1998 lists of
17 registered voters and we could then compare that list with the list of
18 missing persons to see if there were any survivors.
19 Q. And I think this detail is in your report, but do you recall how
20 many matches there may have been, just roughly, between people identified
21 in the -- in the voters list and the people on the lists that you were
22 developing, your -- your IC -- OTP list [Overlapping speakers] ...
23 A. Yeah, there were nine persons, missing persons, who were found on
24 the voter lists 1997 and 1998. So it could be that they were -- either
25 they were survivors or there was some faulty registration of these
Page 15138
1 people, either intentional or non-intentional.
2 Q. And what did you do with those matches? Did you subtract them
3 from your list? Keep them there or what?
4 A. We deleted the names because we knew the names of these people.
5 Q. And in your study, did you find any substantial or significant
6 evidence of false reports to the ICRC or to PHR?
7 A. We did not find any intentional false reporting. There were
8 mistakes as in all registration of numbers in statistical bureaus or
9 otherwise. Mistakes are made. I make mistakes myself sometimes. But
10 there was no organised -- apparently no organised or intentional
11 registration of -- to vote by people who were missing, believed to be
12 missing or dead.
13 Also, there -- if I may, there was also no intentional
14 registration of people as missing were who were fictitious. We did not
15 find any examples of fictitious persons being registered as missing. You
16 could think that some could think of doing that, to -- to -- expand or to
17 overestimate the number of missing and dead in -- in the political
18 conflict.
19 JUDGE MOLOTO: If I may just interrupt. Mr. Brunborg, it -- how
20 did your research account for people who fled the former Yugoslavia?
21 People in the diaspora?
22 THE WITNESS: Thank you, sir. We -- people who were registered
23 as missing by familiar members soon after the conflict but it was also --
24 so that's -- then they were in Bosnia, most of them. But it was also
25 possible to register people as missing in other countries. Moreover, it
Page 15139
1 was possible to register to vote in other countries, and we did get lists
2 of voters who had registered abroad and we -- which we again got from
3 OSCE, which was used to check whether there were any survivors among the
4 missing persons.
5 JUDGE MOLOTO: So you managed to get those who were in the
6 diaspora who decided to register to vote?
7 THE WITNESS: Definitely.
8 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you so much.
9 JUDGE ORIE: But could I then ask you as a follow-up question:
10 Would you manage to get those if they did not registered to vote but were
11 just living somewhere, fled the country or left the country, and ...
12 THE WITNESS: That is also correct, sir. Of course, when
13 somebody registered to vote, that is a voluntary decision, so there are
14 always some people who are not interested to vote. Whether living at --
15 in Bosnia or abroad, and probably a higher percentage living abroad. And
16 not interested to vote for various reasons, political reasons, illness,
17 lack of information on where to register, or that there was going to be
18 an election. So the percentage of people who register to vote varied
19 with where they lived. It also varied actually by ethnicity. Some
20 ethnicities registered more to vote than other -- other groups.
21 JUDGE ORIE: And perhaps an important category: Without legal
22 status of residence abroad.
23 THE WITNESS: That's correct. You have to be a citizen of a
24 country to vote and have to be above 18 years of age.
25 JUDGE ORIE: Do you have any impression as to what numbers would
Page 15140
1 be involved in such -- could I call them disappeared persons, missing for
2 at home but perhaps still alive living abroad under such circumstances
3 not being registered.
4 THE WITNESS: We're speaking about small numbers. A few dozen,
5 perhaps.
6 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you.
7 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Why do you think so, that this is such a small
8 number?
9 THE WITNESS: Because in all our searches with lists of people
10 who are living today, we found very small numbers. It happened often
11 that apparently there were many, there were hundreds of matches but when
12 we scrutinised closer and looked at the data and dropped those apparently
13 false links because sometimes people have similar names, similar dates of
14 birth, but when we excluded those we came down to very few. Two -- two
15 or three dozen, at the most.
16 JUDGE ORIE: But perhaps I'm puzzled also by the last question
17 but also by your answer.
18 If you have a missing person who is nowhere found, he is not
19 identified, he is not -- his death has not been established, perhaps you
20 wouldn't expect all of them living with an illegal status in Australia,
21 Russia, United States, Canada, Western Europe, but how would you know the
22 approximate size of the number of people who are still missing but could
23 live under circumstances as you described and perhaps as illegal with an
24 illegal status in foreign countries?
25 How do you -- how do you obtain an impression of those -- of
Page 15141
1 their numbers?
2 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
3 First, to the best of my knowledge, I don't think there were that
4 many who lived under illegal status because there were -- most of the
5 people who left Bosnia due to the armed conflicts were registered by the
6 United Nations High Commission for Refugees and then were given
7 permission to live in other countries.
8 So it was not easy for them to go to other countries to live. We
9 also have those -- we checked lists of displaced persons in Bosnia. They
10 were of course -- they were not illegal -- illegally -- they were living
11 in the same country. We found very few. A few dozen. Actually, one and
12 a half dozen. And -- but it is -- of course, as you indicate, it is
13 possible that there were some who were believed reported as missing who
14 went abroad illegally and never showed up on any list. That's possible.
15 JUDGE ORIE: Well, you're talking --
16 THE WITNESS: We never -- excuse me, we asked people -- asked
17 organisations, Are there any people who are alive, and we didn't receive
18 any reports. Remember, these lists were public and they could be read in
19 any country, seen in any country, also in Australia, so if a neighbour
20 knew that they saw, Oh, my neighbour has that name and is on the list of
21 missing persons, that could have been reported. But if a person went
22 that far as changing the name we wouldn't know. There may be a few cases
23 in the area you're indicated, but all indications are that there were
24 very few.
25 JUDGE ORIE: But you give us one of your reasons that it was not
Page 15142
1 easy to got [sic] a formal status elsewhere which would perhaps encourage
2 people to not apply and to just disappear and accept the status of an
3 illegal foreigner.
4 THE WITNESS: In principle, yes, but it was much more attractive
5 to be registered as a refugee and then receive support and the right to
6 live in a country and the right to work also.
7 There was a lot of -- there was at that time -- in the 1990s,
8 there was a lot of sympathy for refugees from the former Yugoslavia, and
9 many European countries accepted large numbers of refugees. In my own
10 country, Norway, there were 12.000 refugees from Bosnia who were given
11 permission to work and live.
12 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Would you agree with me that the first reason
13 you gave - that it is far more attractive to receive support - may be not
14 very valid because if you fail, you may be kicked out, which is not very
15 attractive at all. Espoused, that's in more legal terms. But the second
16 argument I understand that you say if there is sympathy for this
17 category, the risk of being denied access to such a country becomes
18 lower. Yes. Thank you.
19 JUDGE MOLOTO: And I do understand, sir, that your organisation
20 or you co-ordinated with various governments of various UN --
21 United Nations refugee organisations in various countries to make sure
22 that you get the lists of these people who are living in there, to the
23 extent that each one of those people were possible to be identified?
24 THE WITNESS: We got lists of people who registered to vote in
25 other countries. From my own country, I got lists of people actually who
Page 15143
1 lived in -- lived in Norway who were from Bosnia, but they are few
2 countries that can provide such lists.
3 JUDGE MOLOTO: But there are people who also lived as refugees in
4 other countries, not necessarily people registered to vote in those
5 countries.
6 THE WITNESS: That is correct. So we did not get information
7 about everybody. We did not get a complete list of everybody who lived
8 in other countries as refugees. We also did not have a complete list of
9 everybody who survived the conflicts and who lived in Bosnia since they
10 hadn't -- not yet has there been a census of the population of Bosnia.
11 JUDGE MOLOTO: So your number of one and a half dozen can't then
12 stand.
13 THE WITNESS: With due respect, I think it will stand. Because I
14 mentioned the nine people we found on the 1997/1998 voters lists who were
15 also registered as missing. It is later been shown that at least two of
16 those -- at least two of those have been found in mass graves and
17 identified as dead. And that is also the case for some of the other
18 seemingly surviving missing people that they are found to be dead later.
19 Let me ...
20 JUDGE MOLOTO: I was trying to understand your answer.
21 I'm not quite sure -- this number nine represents what? I beg
22 your pardon. One and a half dozen number, what does it represent?
23 THE WITNESS: It represents people who have been listed as
24 missing by ICRC or PHR on the OTP list 2000, 2005 or 2009. Actually, now
25 only talk about the 2000 list, who seemed -- appear on lists of voters in
Page 15144
1 1997/1998. So they're both listed as missing and the registered to vote,
2 seemingly.
3 JUDGE MOLOTO: Okay.
4 THE WITNESS: Later two of those nine have been found to be dead.
5 And today I should think that even more have been found to be dead.
6 JUDGE MOLOTO: Okay. Then -- it doesn't -- this doesn't relate
7 to the question -- my original question. Thank you so much.
8 MR. McCLOSKEY:
9 Q. On the -- on a similar topic, you started your answers there with
10 the -- the fact that the ICRC list is -- is based upon mainly family
11 members or close friends that are reporting their -- their loved ones or
12 neighbours missing.
13 Did you take into account that there may be missing people that
14 had no family members left to report them? And, if so, did you get any
15 feel in your work for how many people there might be in that category, if
16 any?
17 A. That's an issue we have been concerned about all the time, and
18 the indication of this as a case is that the number of reported missing
19 persons is -- has increased by low numbers. It increased from 2000 to
20 2005. The table on the screen shows that it increased by at least 29.
21 So it's a low number.
22 Another indication that there are some people in that category
23 that were dead but not reported as missing is that -- in the exhumations
24 there are some people who are found and identified with a unique profile
25 who are not -- doesn't match with any -- the name of the person is not
Page 15145
1 found. A few hundred.
2 So that indicates that there was nobody who -- to report them.
3 Q. Is that based on the -- your knowledge that ICMP took blood from
4 many of the relatives reporting their people missing?
5 A. Exactly, yes.
6 Q. And that if a named person shows up in a mass grave --
7 A. No. It's not named them.
8 Q. How about a named person? Are there named people that don't
9 connect to any of the missing lists that -- that you recall?
10 A. Then we wouldn't know the name.
11 Q. All right.
12 A. Because only if he was wearing a name tag would we know the name.
13 But to give you a couple of examples that may illuminate this is
14 that, say, a man - in most -- most of the missing are men - was newly
15 married, he had no children, his parents are not alive, then reported by
16 his wife as missing, but he would have no common -- or very little common
17 DNA material compared to his wife since then he would not -- could not be
18 found as identified as the husband of somebody. He can be then
19 identified as a son or father or cousin but not as a husband.
20 Q. So you're speaking of individuals identified in mass graves by
21 name because of a blood DNA connection?
22 A. Yeah.
23 Q. And people that are identified as unique individuals through DNA
24 but --
25 A. Yeah.
Page 15146
1 Q. But no name; is that right?
2 A. That's true. Now there are some cases especially at the
3 beginning of this process that people found in graves and were identified
4 without DNA analysis because -- before this became common. There were 68
5 such persons who on our missing lists -- first missing list who were
6 identified as dead. I don't know the exact way this was done, but this
7 could be through a unique features, clothing, dental features, which was
8 the way identification was done previously before DNA analysis become the
9 very reliable and common source of identifying people.
10 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. McCloskey, I'm looking at the clock.
11 MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you, yes. It's -- let's take a break.
12 JUDGE ORIE: Time for a break.
13 We take a break of 20 minute, Mr. Brunborg. We'd like to see you
14 back after that. You may follow the usher.
15 [The witness stands down]
16 JUDGE ORIE: We'll resume at 12.30.
17 --- Recess taken at 12.08 p.m.
18 --- On resuming at 12.30 p.m.
19 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Lukic, you made an oral request to sit -- oh,
20 Mr. Lukic is not there. I apologise.
21 Mr. Stojanovic, Mr. Lukic made a request to sit less than five
22 days and to adapt the schedule. Now, in view of the upcoming recess
23 which may change circumstances considerably where it gives three weeks to
24 have rest, the Chamber will not decide on the request now.
25 It invites the Defence to consider the effect of three weeks of
Page 15147
1 non-sitting and expresses that the preferred way of further pursuing the
2 issue would be in a well-motivated written motion with adequate
3 supporting materials.
4 Now that is the request of this morning, which addresses the
5 present situation. Of course, the other matter, separate matter,
6 although not entirely without a link but a separate issue, is the pending
7 request for a certificate for an appeal. The Chamber has not received
8 any response to the request for a certificate yet, if I'm not mistaken,
9 Mr. McCloskey. When could we expect that?
10 MR. McCLOSKEY: I'll look into that. I don't have that right
11 now, Mr. President. I'm sure there's been a -- close to a decision made
12 but I'll see where we are.
13 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Because the Chamber would -- may have some
14 preference in receiving that expeditiously so that when we have the
15 recess that we do not lose unnecessary time deciding on the matter,
16 whatever direction that decision may go.
17 MR. McCLOSKEY: Absolutely. And I don't see any reason it should
18 take very long. So I will look into that and get back to you and -- and
19 just -- on a related subject, just so you know, I think we've seen --
20 we're hoping we're going to be finished with the Prosecution's case by
21 October, maybe going into November if, you know, things happen but that's
22 what we're looking at. We have first the Srebrenica component,
23 Mr. Butler and Mr. Janc, the significant witnesses shortly after we get
24 back and then some other expert witnesses for the rest of the case. But
25 we're hoping to end, end of October, perhaps early November.
Page 15148
1 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Then could the witness be escorted into the
2 courtroom.
3 [Trial Chamber confers]
4 JUDGE ORIE: No results yet for coffee or tea meetings.
5 MR. IVETIC: Actually, I can report that the videos D246 MFI and
6 D245 MFI have been copied and given to the Prosecution as -- earlier than
7 the seven days that had been anticipated.
8 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. That's hereby on the record.
9 [The witness takes the stand]
10 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. McCloskey, you may continue your examination .
11 MR. McCLOSKEY:
12 Q. Yes. Sir, while we have this -- this chart up here, we can all
13 see that you've got a very exact total of number of missing, 7.692 at the
14 time of this report several years ago.
15 Can you tell us is this meant to be an exact figure? Is it less?
16 Is it more? Is it -- how should we take this figure? Is it
17 conservative? Is it liberal? What is it?
18 A. In our work we were also -- we were always trying to be
19 conservative. So if there was any doubt about person whether he or she
20 was missing or -- or dead or alive, we -- or did not much up with
21 something we deleted the person. So it should be considered a
22 conservative estimate.
23 And this has been strengthened by other time since more persons
24 have been added to the missing list, mostly because they have been found
25 to be dead.
Page 15149
1 Q. All right. I'll get into that briefly as -- as the final
2 chapter, the DNA IDs and how that fit in your report. But before we get
3 there, could we go to your actual list itself. It should be 65
4 ter 11270.
5 And this is the first page of the list you created; is that
6 correct?
7 A. That's correct.
8 Q. All right.
9 MR. McCLOSKEY: Let's go to page 8 in e-court. This is mostly a
10 list of names, Mr. President, so it has not been translated, but if we
11 can just blow up the one on the right side. And we can -- we can see
12 here that the -- yes, right there is fine, that the name, the full names
13 on the left are the name, last first, first, father's, the next is sex,
14 the next date of birth, the next date and place of disappearance, then
15 status, then registration number, and then a code and a grave-site.
16 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey, is that a public document? Can
17 this list be broadcast?
18 MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you, Your Honours. Out of an abundance of
19 caution we should not broad it. There is still a possibility that there
20 are people on this list that have -- family has not been notified and
21 thank you for that reminder.
22 I hope, in consultation with ICMP, we will be able to make this
23 list public.
24 Q. And, sir, I don't want to go over all this. I think it speaks
25 for itself but is this very closely modelled after the ICRC list?
Page 15150
1 A. Yes. With one very important addition and that is the
2 identified, which means dead. I think in all the identified cases the
3 information comes from ICMP.
4 Q. All right.
5 A. So this is a very important change from previous editions.
6 Q. All right. And let me -- I'll go to a table now. Unless there's
7 any questions on the list in particular. We -- we see familiar sounding
8 names for place of disappearance and the dates of disappearance. This is
9 all the information from the family members that reported this to ICRC or
10 PHR?
11 A. They could be information from other sources as well through the
12 merging of different lists. The ICMP has their own missing list, and
13 also, in some case, we took information from the 1991 census, especially
14 on date of birth. If it was incomplete on the ICRC list and we were
15 convinced that it was a true match with 1991 census, we could then
16 transfer the full date of birth from the 1991 census to our -- the -- our
17 list.
18 Q. Okay. And I think that is explained in your report. If we could
19 now go to 65 ter 25879. And before we get there, can you tell us, as
20 the -- as you've noted, the Chamber has heard evidence of very large
21 numbers of people identified by name either from areas that have been
22 noted by the Prosecution as mass graves or areas that have been noted on
23 the surface in the area. Having those DNA-identified names in the
24 thousands, does that help you in any way as a quality control or a
25 double-check of the -- of the accuracy of -- of your -- of your list,
Page 15151
1 which we know is fundamentally based on relatives reporting loved ones.
2 A. Definitely. We started out with looking at lists -- or missing
3 persons. We were not sure whether -- we did not know whether they were
4 dead or not or even survivors or not. The hypothesis was that they had
5 been killed after the fall of Srebrenica but we did not know for sure.
6 Excuse me, my voice needs to be cleared.
7 But the findings of ICMP since 2001 strongly supports the
8 original list of missing persons. Actually, these lists corroborate each
9 other, and since they come from independent sources they strongly support
10 each other. They are highly consistent. They could not -- one of these
11 lists could not be wrong all -- their own because then the other lists
12 would -- would find that, that this was wrong. So they're completely
13 supportive of each other.
14 Q. And so --
15 JUDGE MOLOTO: You say -- sorry. You say the other list would
16 say find that, that was wrong. How --
17 THE WITNESS: Sorry, I was to the clear. Say, if there was one
18 of these lists was strongly biased or full of errors, and one list is
19 full of errors, the other list was not full of errors, then it would --
20 then we'd have large inconsistencies between the lists. They are not
21 large inconsistencies. There are some additional names on each of the
22 lists but only a few hundred. So they really support each other, and we
23 can now quite safely assume that these are lists based on the same
24 population, the same sample of population that these people who went
25 missing or were dead after the fall of -- of Srebrenica.
Page 15152
1 And the information in those lists have been collected in quite
2 different ways.
3 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you very much.
4 Mr. McCloskey, you may proceed.
5 MR. McCLOSKEY:
6 Q. You mention "quite safely assume." Is that the right word,
7 "assume"? We don't want people to assume or presume anything.
8 A. No, no. We are close to concluding that these lists are based on
9 the same populations.
10 Q. Well, we see here from this simple group of numbers for 2009
11 there's a -- it says 66.7 per cent. What does that mean?
12 A. That --
13 Q. [Overlapping speakers]
14 A. That means -- that means 66.7 per cent or two-thirds exactly of
15 the lists of missing persons have been identified as dead.
16 Q. So there's a two-thirds overlap between your list and
17 DNA-identified dead?
18 A. You could say so.
19 Q. Is that one-third left over? Is that a -- is that a problem? Do
20 we flunk the test or do we pass the test? What do you make of that last
21 one-third?
22 A. If you look at that table, sir, you will see that in 2000 the
23 per cent identified was .9 per cent or less than 1 per cent. Then it
24 increased to approximately one-third in 2005, little more than half in
25 2008 and 2002 two-thirds in 2009. It's going up all the time, so that
Page 15153
1 means that the number -- the proportion of missing persons who have not
2 been found to be dead is going down all the time. We will never -- I
3 don't think we will never find all the missing persons. They will not
4 be -- identified all of them, but we'll -- we are getting closer and
5 closer.
6 Q. And your work stopped in 2009?
7 A. The most -- yes. This testimony is based on the 2009 report.
8 MR. McCLOSKEY: And, Your Honours, you will hear updated reports
9 from two witness, Ewa Tabeau and Dusan Janc on this.
10 Q. So this leftover 30-some odd per cent, is that a high error
11 factor and how do you explain that 30-something odd per cent that doesn't
12 fit?
13 JUDGE ORIE: Could I ask you -- perhaps I may have misunderstood
14 the witness.
15 It is not a matter of not fitting, but it is a matter of a
16 limited number of bodies which were tested on DNA were found and were
17 tested on DNA. Then it turned out that, in large numbers, it was able,
18 we heard that evidence, to match those persons to family members which
19 had given --
20 The simple -- without entering into your field of expertise but
21 it's my understanding that if the remaining 30 per cent is not a group
22 with very special features which would result in suddenly changing the
23 outcome of the DNA test in a totally different way on any body found on
24 from now, that it is a progressing confirmation of the assumptions that
25 were made, and it's not a matter of passing the test yes or no. Future
Page 15154
1 will tell us, but it becomes more and more unlikely that the results of
2 the DNA tests of bodies not yet found would considerably differ from the
3 outcome until now.
4 That's my understanding of your testimony and I have great
5 difficulties in understanding the questions put my Mr. McCloskey. Could
6 you either decide in favour of Mr. McCloskey or in favour of my
7 understanding.
8 THE WITNESS: Well, I'm sorry to say that your comment on this
9 was absolutely correct. I'm very clear.
10 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And you refrain from any -- yes.
11 MR. McCLOSKEY: I -- Mr. President, I --
12 JUDGE ORIE: [Overlapping speakers] ... Mr. McCloskey is hereby
13 invited to put his next question to the witness .
14 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, and I was putting on my Mr. Ivetic hat to
15 test of witness, of course, but thank you for that clarification.
16 In fact, that might be a good time... all right.
17 THE WITNESS: Could I add one thing as to your comment.
18 JUDGE ORIE: Well, I was just reflecting what I understood to be
19 your testimony, yes.
20 THE WITNESS: Yeah. Now, I -- as time goes on, more and more
21 bodies are found, and more and more are identified, DNA analysis is
22 carried out, but it's now becoming increasingly difficult because the
23 remaining bodies are more difficult to identify because one reason is
24 that they found in many different graves. And if you found human remains
25 in two or three or four different graves, it's a big puzzle to collect
Page 15155
1 and to identify different human remains, different bones.
2 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. We've heard evidence about that and that --
3 when body parts are spread over all of the place then it causes
4 additional problems.
5 Please proceed, Mr. McCloskey.
6 MR. McCLOSKEY:
7 Q. I will just -- and I know in your reports is -- that there have
8 been challenges to your conclusions based on various documents and
9 materials over the many years that you have been testifying, and I think
10 that is addressed in your reports, and we -- perhaps we will hear from
11 the Defence on some of those issues so I won't go -- I won't go into
12 that. Except was there -- were there allegations that people that had --
13 were alive and well because they were on the voters list and should not,
14 therefore, have been on the missing list, is that something -- I think
15 you talked about that briefly before, but was that an allegation that was
16 made that you looked into?
17 A. Yes. But we -- we had already looked at that. And all those who
18 were found on the voters list, those missing on the voters list, no one
19 has been seen alive. They come up in statistical or analysis but they
20 have not been seen. So that allegation is -- has been refuted.
21 Q. All right. And then one last table I'd like to go to,
22 65 ter 25878, which was taken from your report as had this last one that
23 we saw, so I won't be offering them into evidence at this point. If we
24 could ... I think we really need to blow this up in one language or
25 another. It's -- it's -- and we can call it: The distribution of
Page 15156
1 Srebrenica-related missing and dead. All missing versus confirmed dead
2 in percent.
3 Now, I have to admit, I have never fully understood this graph.
4 Can you tell us what this illustrates for your study?
5 A. Yes. That top panel shows percentage distribution of all
6 Srebrenica related missing and dead persons. That is those who are on
7 the OTP 2009 missing list. It shows that the -- little more than
8 14 per cent of persons in age group 20 to 24 -- sorry, of all -- of all
9 the missing, 14 per cent are in the age group 20 to 24. And 1 per cent
10 are aged 70 to 74, for example.
11 Q. And is this based on the missing list information gained from
12 relatives from your list?
13 A. Yeah. Remember that we have the year of birth for everybody.
14 Q. All right. So we -- and I know your report spells out the actual
15 numbers of some of these age range from 10 years old to 19. I won't go
16 into that. All right. So we understand that. That's from your list.
17 What's the next one below that, if we could put that up. And it says:
18 Identified and closed dead, with the same -- we have percentages and --
19 and lists again. What -- now we have things blacked out. What does that
20 mean in relation to anything?
21 A. That is the percentage distribution of those who have been found
22 to be dead. And the absolute number is much smaller. It's about
23 two-thirds of the top panel as we just heard. But the percentage
24 distribution is remarkably similar. If we move one down, to the third
25 panel, both -- we can see only the third panel is enough. We --
Page 15157
1 Q. Just to interrupt. If we could put the third panel up by itself.
2 So this is the first panel and the second panel listed next to each other
3 basically?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. So we have missing lists and next to it we have the dead list.
6 Okay.
7 A. Yes, and it shows that the age distribution of those two groups
8 of people are almost identical.
9 Q. And so what?
10 A. It shows that the -- they come from the same population.
11 There's nothing -- the dead persons are -- come from the same population
12 as the missing persons.
13 JUDGE ORIE: Could I ask you a question there.
14 If we would have a different picture, for example, no one found
15 above 60 which would then give a different picture, would that allow for
16 the conclusion that they are not from the same population, or is it just
17 a matter of the persons which were established to be dead, to -- would --
18 if they come from the same population as the persons missing, that it
19 would be a representative portion of it rather than we only found the
20 young ones, or we only found the old ones, or that it is -- in terms of
21 age, representing a similar buildup of the population, a composition of
22 the population, as the population from where these persons were reported
23 missing?
24 THE WITNESS: I'll try to make this more clear.
25 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
Page 15158
1 THE WITNESS: The -- the -- the identified dead come from the
2 same population as the missing -- I mean, they come from the missing
3 population. Sorry, I was a bit unclear. That's what it shows. That
4 they -- the dead come from the population on missing. They -- the
5 missing come from sort of general population of all of Eastern Bosnia,
6 but once they have been declared missing and there have been exhumations
7 and identification, the age distribution of the dead is almost identical
8 to the distribution of the missing with some differences. Perhaps that
9 could clarify. We see that for the -- the youngest age groups, 15, 19
10 and 20 to 24, there are relatively more reported missing than had been
11 identified as dead. And the reason for that could be that among the
12 young men more walked through the forests and died on the way and were
13 not found, therefore, not found in mass graves. So then a proportionally
14 lower proportion of them have -- a relatively lower proportion of them
15 have been identified as dead.
16 JUDGE ORIE: Could I then ask you one question. When said they
17 come from the same population, you mean the population of persons having
18 been reported as missing? That is what you call the population?
19 THE WITNESS: Yes, yes, yeah.
20 JUDGE ORIE: I was a bit confused about that, how you identified
21 the population here.
22 THE WITNESS: Sorry for being unclear on that.
23 JUDGE ORIE: Perhaps for me, bad understanding.
24 Mr. McCloskey.
25 JUDGE MOLOTO: I have a follow-up question.
Page 15159
1 If the identified and closed are part of the -- come from the
2 population that has been reported as missing, I -- I find it a little
3 difficult to understand this graph where we now have, in -- if you look
4 at, for instance, age 30 to 34, you have more dead than you have
5 population. I would expect the black graph to be always be a -- a
6 portion of the white graph, not ever to be greater. Am I right or wrong?
7 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry, sir, you are wrong.
8 JUDGE MOLOTO: [Overlapping speakers]
9 THE WITNESS: Percentage in percentages can sometimes be
10 difficult to handle and they're always straightforward. Because remember
11 that the bars add to 100 per cent. The white bars and the dark, black
12 bars add up to 100 per cent. When you look at 30 to 34, it means that
13 approximately 11 per cent of the total number of missing persons are in
14 that age group. But approximately 11.5 per cent of all those found to be
15 dead are in that age groups.
16 Is that -- but the absolute number of the black bar is, of
17 course, much smaller -- is smaller than or less than the number of
18 missing persons. You are right that the number of dead cannot exceed the
19 missing.
20 JUDGE MOLOTO: [Microphone not activated] Now you said I was
21 wrong, now you say I'm right.
22 THE WITNESS: You're right about absolute numbers, but you were
23 not right about the percentage numbers.
24 JUDGE MOLOTO: Thank you.
25 MR. McCLOSKEY:
Page 15160
1 Q. So does this -- is this -- does this support the credibility of
2 and accuracy of your missing list, the fact that these percentages are so
3 close?
4 A. Yes. It shows, for example, that the missing list was not made
5 up by -- by somebody, by reporting fictitious persons or persons who were
6 alive but not went missing, et cetera. So they -- they strongly support
7 each other.
8 Q. So if there were large, relatively large numbers of false reports
9 or people living in Greece, Slovenia, Portugal, would that be reflected
10 in this graph?
11 A. Yes. Because then -- then -- if they belonged to a certain age
12 group and not spread all over, then that would make the bars more
13 different.
14 Q. All right. As I said that -- this is always been a -- a tricky
15 issue. But I thank you for your -- for your testimony. I do not have
16 any other questions and we will wait until after the cross to offer
17 anything.
18 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
19 Mr. Ivetic, are you ready to cross-examine Mr. Brunborg?
20 MR. IVETIC: I hope to be, Your Honour.
21 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Brunborg, you'll now be cross-examined by
22 Mr. Ivetic. Mr. Ivetic is a member of the Defence team of Mr. Mladic.
23 MR. IVETIC: Thank you, Your Honour.
24 Cross-examination by Mr. Ivetic:
25 Q. Good day, sir. I'd like to start off by looking at 65 ter number
Page 15161
1 11269 with you. And that will be your 2009 report and I'd like to turn
2 to page 6 in both the English and the B/C/S. And that should bring us to
3 the table that we were just looking at a few moments ago.
4 Now, you, I think, identified that the number of persons
5 identified by DNA is actually -- I wrote down 5.061, but in any event
6 whether it's 5.061 or 5.053, for those people you cannot give us an
7 opinion as to the exact details of where, when, and how they died to a
8 degree of scientific certainty, can you?
9 A. I was not tasked to do that. But in the -- in the appended list
10 that was referred to, it is included the grave where they were found. So
11 that says something about where they were found, not how they were died
12 or where they died actually. You are right on that.
13 Q. Thank you, sir. Now, we've seen both your 2007 curriculum vitae
14 and we've seen the update, and I think I'm correct, and please tell me if
15 that is so, that apart from the several cases that you have testified at
16 this Tribunal as an expert witness, you have not testified as an expert
17 witness at any trial in any other jurisdiction before any other court; is
18 that right?
19 A. That's correct.
20 Q. Now, also looking at your CV, it appears that your degree is
21 specialised in the field of economic demography; is that correct?
22 A. That's correct.
23 Q. And in terms of that field, would that be where you're trying to
24 figure out incomes, how labour, how the labour force works, migration of
25 labour, those sorts of topics?
Page 15162
1 A. That's one of the topics. Although in my dissertation I looked
2 for economic factors affecting fertility decisions about -- decisions
3 about how many children and when people should have children.
4 Q. Yes, I apologise. That was recorded and I had missed that in my
5 notes.
6 Now, in your prior employment with Statistics Norway - that is,
7 prior to doing the work at the ICTY - did any of your work involve doing
8 demographic studies of war zones, that is populations that were subject
9 to an ongoing war?
10 A. No. But I had worked in some African countries with data
11 situations that were not very different from the situation in the former
12 Yugoslavia.
13 Q. Okay. What percentage of your work at Statistics Norway did this
14 type of work entail, what you describe as being not very different from
15 data situations in the former Yugoslavia?
16 A. That -- the expression not very different was between a country
17 like Botswana and Bosnia where they don't have population registers which
18 we have in Norway.
19 Now, Bosnia did not have population register but they were close
20 to having one, and they had personal identification number, and this is
21 also what we have in my country. So a lot of my work has been studying
22 and analysing data coming from so-called administrative registers and
23 merging data from different registers, so which was highly relevant for
24 my work here.
25 Q. And are you in a position to tell us approximately - doesn't have
Page 15163
1 to be precise - what percentage of your work prior to coming to the ICTY
2 dealt with applying demographic principles to examine and draw
3 conclusions from an area of armed conflict?
4 A. I -- I had never worked on armed conflicts before but the basic
5 principles and -- are the same whether you do demographic work in a
6 country of peace or conflict. Many of the principles are the same. The
7 main difference is that the data more faulty and they concern different
8 events.
9 Q. And when you say that you had never worked on armed conflicts
10 previously can we also conclude that you have not previously, prior to
11 coming to the ICTY, published any papers on the topic of demography as
12 applied to areas of armed conflict?
13 A. That is correct, sir. But there are also -- there were very few
14 papers on that all together by researchers all over the world.
15 Q. I agree, sir. And, in fact, wasn't it a rather novel approach in
16 the field of demography at the time that you started performing the work
17 that you did for the ICTY, this concept of applying demographic
18 scientific principles to armed conflicts?
19 A. Yes, I would think so, although some people had done related
20 work. What was novel about my work was that it was entirety based on
21 what we call micro data, that is data on individuals. They are in
22 conflict situations. Few cases where you have data on individuals. One
23 other well known example is the Second World War where the 6 million Jews
24 that were exterminated were known on both parties because both parties
25 kept lists of what was going on. But in many other conflicts there
Page 15164
1 are -- there's a large lack of names an information about the individuals
2 who were affected.
3 Q. And would you agree with me, sir, that since you came to the ICTY
4 and since you authored the reports on Srebrenica, for instance, one of
5 which we have seen, the 2009 report today, that this area of work that
6 you had not done previously has now become a significant part of your
7 participation in commissions, speaking engagements, and working sessions
8 since you've left the ICTY?
9 A. That is true, sir.
10 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Ivetic, what's, for the Chamber, the relevance
11 of this information? What should we learn from this? That the witness
12 not let asleep the knowledge and experience he gained or what's, for our
13 decisions, the relevance?
14 MR. IVETIC: Well, Your Honours, to establish that the
15 application of demography in the manner of studying armed conflicts is
16 not a -- it's a -- it is still an experimental part of that field of
17 study. That it's not one that has many years of development. It's a
18 recent development in the field of demographic studies in the manner that
19 it was done for these reports. That is the point I'm trying to make.
20 JUDGE ORIE: And what are we supposed to do that? That it'
21 relatively new was already clear, isn't it? That you were lecturing
22 about it would have made any difference if the witness would not have
23 lectured about it. Would it be any less experimental? Would it be
24 any -- I mean, the same as whether he testifies for the first time in a
25 court, we wondered what the relevance of that is. I mean, if you are an
Page 15165
1 expert you may never be called in your whole life to be examined in a
2 court on your expertise and others may do.
3 What's the relevance for us?
4 MR. IVETIC: I appreciate that, Your Honour, but I would be very
5 surprised to hear that that is an improper question for an expert
6 witness, how many times they have testified --
7 JUDGE ORIE: I'm not saying --
8 MR. IVETIC: [Overlapping speakers] ... expert.
9 JUDGE ORIE: I'm not saying it's improper. It may be irrelevant
10 and I'm inviting you to tell us the relevance of that question.
11 MR. IVETIC: Goes to the reliability of the expert, Your Honour.
12 JUDGE ORIE: So whether you testify or not -- I testified once in
13 my life as an expert. Does that make me any less an expert in the field
14 on which I testified?
15 MR. IVETIC: It is a factor that is to be considered by a Court
16 examining the testimony of a witness.
17 JUDGE ORIE: No. We are considering the answers the witness
18 gives. That's the relevant issue. And not whether he testified five or
19 ten times or never before.
20 Please proceed. It's about relevance. It's not about whether
21 it's proper or inappropriate. It's relevance, Mr. Ivetic.
22 Please proceed.
23 MR. IVETIC: Thank you, Your Honour.
24 Q. Now, in terms of the work that did you here at the Tribunal, sir,
25 am I correct that you had some student assistants who were actually
Page 15166
1 performing some of the work with you?
2 A. That is true.
3 Q. And, in fact, some of these students co-authored some of the
4 reports and some of the subsequent papers; is that correct?
5 A. That is correct.
6 Q. And with respect to these students -- first of all, I think we
7 should identify the number of these students that assisted you. Could
8 you -- I know of, I think, two. Am I correct that it was approximately
9 two individuals?
10 A. There were four altogether when I was employed here.
11 Q. Okay. And in relation to these four individuals, can you tell me
12 if they had at the time that they were working with you, were they still
13 students or had they obtained degrees in any scientific field?
14 A. One had obtained a degree in -- in informatics, I think, while
15 the other ones were students but later graduated.
16 Two of them have -- had very excellent careers, academic careers
17 after they finished their work here.
18 Q. And in relation to the work that they did here, am I correct that
19 they operated with a great deal of autonomy from you?
20 A. That -- that is true.
21 Q. And in terms of the work they did, am I correct that you did a
22 lot of so-called consistency checks, random checking?
23 A. Yes. But not only random checking, systematic checking.
24 Q. And that's what I'm trying to find out, sir. In relation to your
25 oversight or checking of the work done by these students, were there any
Page 15167
1 parts of their work that would not have been subjected to your scrutiny?
2 A. As long as I didn't sit next to them, I could not control every
3 single step. But these were very able people, and what I could do more
4 was to check their -- their findings, their aggregate findings, not every
5 single step. But they were working under my guidance.
6 Q. Okay. Now I want to focus on the time-period when you first came
7 to the Office of the Prosecutor.
8 MR. IVETIC: And to do so, I would like to, first of all, turn to
9 1D1162 and turn to page 5 in e-court which should correlate to transcript
10 page 6966 of the Blagojevic trial, if I've done my math correctly. I
11 believe we need the prior page. There we go.
12 Q. And, sir, I wanted to be very precise in terms of the language I
13 use for your tasking or mandate from the OTP, so I thought I'd revisit
14 your own words at lines 5 through 13 and you are welcome to follow along
15 with me as I read it into the record:
16 "Q. Now, in your discussions with Jean-Rene Ruez and
17 Peter McCloskey, did you receive guidance in relation to whether you
18 should be more liberal or more conservative or whatever in relation to
19 your projects and indeed the numbers you were discussing?
20 "A. They told me to do very strict and to be very careful, very
21 conservative. And they also told me that I should only include persons
22 who were registered as missing after the 11th of July, 1995, and only
23 persons whose place of missing was related to the fall of Srebrenica,
24 that is near Srebrenica."
25 Does this accurately depict your tasking, as it were, from the
Page 15168
1 Office of the Prosecutor when you first came to do your work for
2 Srebrenica?
3 A. Yes, that's correct. But we agree that we should also include a
4 few people who went -- reported as missing before 11th of July and after
5 1st of July. That is, 41, approximately 41 persons, since they could
6 have last -- they could have been seen before 11th of July but went
7 missing or went dead after 11th of July. A small number. But we did not
8 include anybody who was reported as missing before the 1st of July, 1995.
9 Q. Okay. Now as part of your mandate and your task that you
10 received from the Office of the Prosecutor, were you asked to pay
11 attention to the status of persons so as to differentiate between those
12 registered as soldiers and those that were not?
13 A. No, I was not.
14 Q. Was any part of your tasking or mandate concerned with
15 differentiating whether persons had gone missing as part of the column of
16 Bosnian Muslim males that left Srebrenica and went through the woods to
17 try and break through to Tuzla?
18 A. No, I was not. But I would like do add, as to the first part of
19 that question, attention to the status of persons being soldiers that
20 we -- after I left, my colleagues acquired lists on -- from the Bosnian
21 army who had gone -- been killed, and -- and this list was merged with
22 the list of missing. And 70 per cent of those who are reported as
23 missing were also listed by the army as having been killed.
24 But the army did not list any place of disappearance or cause
25 of -- or cause of death or place of death, whether it was in combat or
Page 15169
1 not. They listed death -- date of death but that appeared to be -- the
2 quality of that information appeared to be poor.
3 Q. Thank you. Now, just a few more questions about the mandate
4 before we proceed to other parts.
5 MR. IVETIC: If we can look at 1D1163, page 70 in e-court.
6 JUDGE ORIE: Could I seek clarification of one of your previous
7 answers.
8 You said:
9 "... 70 per cent of those who are reported as missing were also
10 listed by the army as having been killed."
11 THE WITNESS: I think, as being dead.
12 JUDGE ORIE: Being dead.
13 THE WITNESS: Yes, there may have been some traffic accidents or
14 other, but I'm not quite sure about the exact wording whether they were
15 killed or dead.
16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, but that is not the research you did
17 yourself --
18 THE WITNESS: No, that was done after I left on a permanent
19 basis.
20 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, then I will not ask any further questions about
21 it to you.
22 Please proceed, Mr. Ivetic.
23 MR. IVETIC: Thank you. If we can call up 1D1163, page 70, and
24 that is it on the screen. And this is a different day from the
25 Blagojevic trial. I'd like to revisit some questions and answers from
Page 15170
1 lines 11 through 20 with you rather than repeating them:
2 "Q. I understand that this is your conclusion, based on this
3 precise information. It is not a fact that they were certainly killed.
4 "A. That is true. But all available evidence indicates that the
5 missing men were dead -- are now dead.
6 "Q. Out of this number, you cannot say how many men were killed
7 in fighting, how many in trying to break through toward Tuzla, how many
8 from self-inflicted wounds or through other collateral damage; is this
9 correct?
10 "A. That's true. That was not part of my mandate, to look at
11 the causes of date and the circumstances under which they died."
12 Does this accurately give more information as to the mandate,
13 that this was not part of your mandate?
14 A. That's correct, sir. I'd like to add, though, that the findings
15 from exhumations and ICMP data analysis shows that a large number was
16 found on the surface and not in mass graves. And it's -- so that's an
17 indication that several of the men who went through were also dead. Who
18 went -- I mean, men who walked through the forest towards Tuzla died on
19 the way.
20 Q. And those men would be included in your list and in your overall
21 figure that you've given for persons who have -- are missing and presumed
22 deceased following the fall of Srebrenica?
23 A. That's true.
24 Q. Okay. Now, normally speaking, and that would be in relation to
25 other demographic studies or tradition demographic studies, is it
Page 15171
1 customary for a demographer when coming to a conclusion to report a
2 potential margin of error and thus a confidence level of the results?
3 A. In some cases, in some times of research that's done, but that
4 depends on the circumstances of the study and the availability of data
5 that makes it possible to estimate confidence levels. That is not always
6 the case.
7 Q. In relation to the work that you did preparing reports and making
8 findings as to Srebrenica, were you instructed to determine and report a
9 potential margin of error or confidence level for those results?
10 A. No. And I don't think -- see how that should be done. What we
11 could have done is to include some cases of missing and perhaps dead
12 also, as uncertain. But we -- we dropped all cases where we were not
13 very convinced about the status. So we had one either include or not
14 include. But we could have given probabilities to -- to matches, for
15 example. That is done also in studies such as -- as this. This is it --
16 methods have been developed for -- in historical demography, matching
17 names and attaching probabilities to the matches. But we did not do
18 that. Probabilities are difficult to understand.
19 Q. And in relation to -- and now on your CV there's a large number
20 of published works that have you in the field of demography. In relation
21 to those published works, am I correct that most of them have as part of
22 their conclusions also a reporting on the confidence levels or margin of
23 error based upon probabilities?
24 A. No. That is not correct.
25 Q. Okay.
Page 15172
1 A. That -- that is mostly applicable when you -- when you do
2 analysis based on sample studies.
3 Q. Now, in relation to more traditional demographic studies, is
4 there a well-defined methodology to estimate the sampling variance of the
5 proportions involved so as to arrive at a margin of error?
6 A. Yes. When you -- if you draw a random sample from a population,
7 they are well-established and simple formula to establish the sample
8 variance or the uncertainty of an estimate.
9 Q. Now when your information comes from various sources, whether
10 primary or secondary in nature, would you, as a demographer normally look
11 at control features to determine the credibility or reliability of those
12 sources, such as looking at balancing errors and whole person
13 imputations?
14 A. Sorry, you have to explain to me what you mean by balancing
15 errors.
16 I know what imputations are. That is assigning numbers to
17 persons that are not really observe [sic] for those persons but we did
18 not do that.
19 Q. Well, sir, it's my understanding that using the principle of
20 balancing errors is a method to determine the confidence level of a
21 particular source, whether it's trustworthy, more trustworthy, less
22 trustworthy, to determine where potential errors might arise in the
23 information that is reported therein?
24 A. I still don't understand what you mean by that. Could it be that
25 these balancing errors occur if you look at the changes in a population.
Page 15173
1 Have you a population one year is a population in the previous year, plus
2 births, minus deaths, plus immigrations, minus out migrations. If
3 those -- those figures don't fit together there is an error in one of the
4 components, but we did not do -- our methodology was not based on this
5 kind of reasoning. It would have been very nice if you could have had
6 the census before the conflict then you have number of victims and then
7 you have the census after the conflict. Then, especially comparing the
8 census before and after conflict could say something about the number of
9 victims. This has been done in situations with much less imperfect data,
10 less perfect data than in Bosnia, say, Cambodia, where they did not have
11 lists of persons who went missing or dead.
12 JUDGE ORIE: Just in order to avoid any confusion later.
13 You said this has been done in situations with less perfect data.
14 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
15 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. The transcript [Overlapping speakers] ...
16 THE WITNESS: More imperfect data.
17 JUDGE ORIE: That's clear. The transcript was not clear on it
18 yet.
19 Please proceed, Mr. Ivetic.
20 MR. IVETIC:
21 Q. I'd like to now spend --
22 JUDGE ORIE: Before I do, I think I should announce a break
23 rather than invite you to continue.
24 We'll take a break and -- after you have been escorted out of the
25 courtroom, Mr. Brunborg.
Page 15174
1 MR. McCLOSKEY: Possible to get an estimate from Mr. Ivetic,
2 just -- it may be planning.
3 JUDGE ORIE: You may -- you're excused for the time being,
4 Mr. Brunborg, until after the break.
5 [The witness stands down]
6 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Ivetic.
7 MR. IVETIC: I believe I have approximately one hour and 35,
8 40 minutes remaining.
9 JUDGE ORIE: Which means there is a fair chance that you conclude
10 your cross-examination well, let's say in it the first session or a
11 little bit more tomorrow morning.
12 MR. IVETIC: I anticipate to, yes, Your Honour.
13 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
14 We take a break and resume at five minutes to 2.00.
15 --- Recess taken at 1.33 p.m.
16 --- On resuming at 1.57 p.m.
17 JUDGE ORIE: Could the witness be escorted into the courtroom.
18 Meanwhile, I take the opportunity as a follow-up from the
19 housekeeping session this morning.
20 First, in relation to D193, which was admitted but the Registrar
21 is hereby instructed to replace the current English translation with the
22 revised version, which was uploaded as 1D05-1741. A similar instruction
23 will follow at the end of this session for D261 and D318.
24 [The witness takes the stand]
25 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Ivetic, you may proceed.
Page 15175
1 MR. IVETIC: Thank you, Your Honour.
2 Q. Dr. Brunborg, would you agree with me that in that situation
3 where you have an armed conflict that the parties to a conflict as well
4 as organisations might have their own agenda or bias in terms of
5 establishing figures, whether someone may want to play down figures
6 whereas another party may want to play up figures.
7 Would you agree with that?
8 MR. McCLOSKEY: Objection. That's so vague. Organisations,
9 parties, where is that going to take us?
10 JUDGE ORIE: May I say it that groups, persons with different
11 interests may take a different approach in providing accurate numbers.
12 Is that, Mr. Ivetic -- I'm wondering whether we are in the realm of an
13 opinion about something which seems to be pretty obvious.
14 I deny the objection. But, at the same time, Dr. Brunborg, would
15 you agree that in -- what Mr. Ivetic told you?
16 THE WITNESS: Absolutely. But I think that is the reason I was
17 hired to work on the numbers and the number of missing and dead and other
18 numbers in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.
19 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed, Mr. Ivetic.
20 MR. IVETIC:
21 Q. Sir, in relation to the work that you did, did you take any steps
22 to determine what any potential biases or agendas the groups on whose
23 lists you relied upon might have?
24 A. Yes. We searched all the time for biases and wrong information.
25 Being on the conservative side, as I said, we were looking for survivors
Page 15176
1 among the missing.
2 Q. Okay. Prior to coming to the Tribunal, did you have occasion as
3 part of your work in the field of Statistics Norway to study or become
4 familiar with the census system or the population recording regime in the
5 Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia in general and Bosnia and
6 Herzegovina in particular?
7 A. I had no previous experience with the censuses in the Balkans.
8 But I had worked and was familiar with censuses in many other countries,
9 including, Norway, United States, Botswana, Zambia and Palestine. And in
10 the former Yugoslavia, censuses were carried out according to the
11 international standards as printed, for example, in handbooks from the
12 United Nations.
13 Q. And how about the Yugoslav system as it pertained to
14 identification registers, registers of births, registers of deaths?
15 A. That's what we call vital statistics, which were also carried
16 out, more or less, to international standards.
17 Q. I would like to revisit -- well, first of all, did you consult
18 with any reference works, treatises, or publications written by others
19 about the Yugoslav system to verify the method in which the vital
20 statistics and the censuses were conducted?
21 A. Yes, I consulted a number of publications and institutions
22 visiting, for example, the federal institute of statistics in Sarajevo.
23 I also -- talking to the directors of the statistical institute for all
24 of Bosnia with the three directors from the three major ethnic groups and
25 reading many other articles, government notes, both from Belgrade
Page 15177
1 regarding the system for all of Yugoslavia, and notes and reports
2 replying to -- for Bosnia only.
3 Q. And in relation to asking -- is it correct you also asked around
4 of the various international organisations in pretty much anyone you
5 could think of to try and figure out what organisations had been keeping
6 figures, where those figures might be, and what form they might be. And
7 when I say international organisations, the Office of the
8 High Representative, et cetera?
9 A. Yeah, I met with all of those in Sarajevo and elsewhere.
10 Q. And when you started, and I think it's still true today, you did
11 not have a reliable and a definite base-line of how many people were
12 residing in Srebrenica just prior to 11 July 1995. Is that accurate?
13 A. That's true. Reports indicated 40.000 at the most, 5.000 less
14 at the least, but these were not considered reliable since we did not
15 have any lists of the number of people they included.
16 Q. And is it also correct, sir, that these figures that were
17 estimates were, in part, based on reporting that had been done to
18 humanitarian organisations for the obtaining of humanitarian aid?
19 A. That is my understanding, sir.
20 Q. And is it also your opinion that this figure may be somewhat
21 inflated because persons wanted to get more rations or more aid and so
22 they over-reported the numbers?
23 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Ivetic, the witness said that they were not
24 considered reliable. Is -- is -- do you want to know why they were not
25 reliable if -- for this witness? Because you're now asking about what
Page 15178
1 possibly could make them unreliable. Where the witness said, We
2 considered them unreliable for his work.
3 MR. IVETIC: Yes.
4 JUDGE ORIE: So the ...
5 Please proceed.
6 MR. IVETIC: Okay.
7 Q. In relation to the two lists which were the primary source of
8 your work, the PHR and the ICRC lists, am I correct that these lists
9 themselves were not complete in terms of the data they contained, and for
10 one example did not both have the unique identifier, the JMBG, or in
11 B/C/S, "Maticni Broj" for everyone?
12 A. These two lists did not include the "Maticni Broj" for anybody,
13 as far as I remember, but the census did. The voters list did not
14 include -- yeah, sorry. The voters list included that number for large
15 number of people, and the census for large number of people, but there
16 were also significant number who did not have that number.
17 MR. IVETIC: And if we can take a look at 65 ter number 04510 and
18 page 4 of the same in both languages.
19 Q. And this will be your 12 February 2000 report. That will be
20 coming up. And in the middle of the page, in the English, the second
21 paragraph before the methodology section, it reads as follows sir:
22 "In both lists there are many empty fields. In the ICRC list the
23 least frequently completed items are date of birth (65.4 per cent
24 complete) and date of disappearance (89.6 per cent). The year of these
25 events is included for almost everybody, however. For the PHR list the
Page 15179
1 least complete items are date of birth (78.2 per cent) and the place of
2 disappearance (80.7 per cent). The other variables are recorded for
3 almost everybody, but that does not necessarily mean they're always
4 correct. Errors are particularly common in the spelling of names of
5 persons and places."
6 And I'd like to stop there and ask you, sir, are these
7 observations contained in your earlier report accurately and truthfully
8 depicting the state of the ICRC and PHR lists?
9 A. Absolutely. Although the percentages may have changed somewhat.
10 Q. Now, in relation to the section labelled methodology, it's on the
11 same page in English. It's on the next page in B/C/S. You talk about
12 the unique ID number. And you state as follows:
13 "Although a unique ID number was introduced in Yugoslavia in
14 1981, it is not used by ICRC and PHR in their databases. Moreover when
15 it is used, such as in the 1991 census and the OSCE voters' register, it
16 is sometimes missing or wrong."
17 Does that -- I'd like to ask if you could explain for us when you
18 say that the JMB -- pardon me, the unique ID number is sometimes missing
19 or wrong, what is that in relation to?
20 A. In the census in 1991 enumerators went around to households and
21 are interviewed usually the head of the household and asked for name,
22 full name, father's name, everybody in the household, date of birth, the
23 "Maticni" -- the full "Maticni Broj," JMBG. And in -- for some of the
24 people they either did not know it or say if the man was absent in the
25 household and their wife was there, she did not know her husband's
Page 15180
1 "Maticni Broj." Could be so -- so then it was just not entered.
2 It was not widely known by -- it was not known that number by
3 everybody as it is in the Scandinavian countries today.
4 Q. Thank you, sir. Now I understand that part.
5 MR. IVETIC: Your Honours, if I understand correct, you have
6 something that you need to --
7 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Perhaps it would be -- that takes only one
8 minute, but if this would be a suitable moment for you to --
9 MR. IVETIC: It is --
10 JUDGE ORIE: To stop for the day.
11 Mr. Brunborg, we'll continue tomorrow morning at 9.30, and -- but
12 before you leave, I'd like to instruct you that you should not speak or
13 communicate in whatever way with whomever about your testimony, whether
14 that is testimony you've given today or testimony still to be given
15 tomorrow, and we expect that it certainly will not take the whole of the
16 morning to complete your testimony. At least that's what we hope.
17 You may follow the usher.
18 THE WITNESS: Thank you, sir. And I'm aware of the restrictions
19 on my behaviour.
20 [The witness stands down]
21 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. As I said before, I'd like to make -- to give
22 two similar instructions to the Registry.
23 This morning, D261 was admitted into evidence, and the Chamber
24 hereby instructs the Registry to replace the initial document, which was
25 1D00845, with the revised version, which is uploaded as 1D00845A.
Page 15181
1 Similar instruction for D318, also admitted. The Chamber hereby
2 instructs the Registrar to replace the current document, which was known
3 as 1D01068, with the revised version, which was uploaded as 1D01068A.
4 We adjourn for the day, and we'll resume tomorrow, Friday, the
5 26th of July, 2013, in this same courtroom, III, at 9.30 in the morning.
6 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.14 p.m.,
7 to be reconvened on Friday, the 26th day of July,
8 2013, at 9.30 a.m.
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